> Employment Hazards
>  by Sarcasm off the Port Bow
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> It Begins
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Teufort, New Mexico
Another day, another bloodbath.

To an outsider, Teufort looked like two farms facing each other, with a water-filled ditch separating them. A bridge had been built in the ditch so that the "farms" could "do business" with each other. Other than the fact that the middle of the New Mexico desert wasn't exactly a prime place to farm in, there was nothing suspicious about the place.

That is, unless the outsider in question was completely deaf and his eyes had some rare disease that made them completely unable to register weapons. And even then, the outsider was sure to notice there didn't seem to be much farming going on.

Yes, Teufort the farming community was an unconvincing cover for the two opposing military bases stationed there; one for the Reliable Excavation Demolition Company, and one for the Builder's League United. RED and BLU, respectively. These two companies were eternally at war with each other, both companies hiring teams of bloodthirsty mercs with the purpose of making off with precious intelligence briefcases.

One such mercenary appeared from seemingly nowhere in a sterile, white room that looked out of place in the bloodstained warzone outside, often littered with body parts. Years back, when the companies were having legal troubles when hiring mercenaries, Mr. Redmond of RED and Mr. Blutarch of BLU had contacted their respective team's Engineers with the task of making a machine that defied death, similar to the one Radigan Cohnager had built for them both many years ago, but less faulty and with a system that worked for multiple people. So they set off on their tasks and one week, two hours and twenty-seven seconds later, respawn was born.

The respawn room contained nine storage lockers, each stuffed to the brim with the mercenaries accumulated weapons, hats, badges, hats, duel challenge forms, and hats. To the left of these lockers was a single resupply cabinet, which held a seemingly infinite supply of first aid kits and ammunition. To the right was a fridge where many of the team's things were stored; the Scout's Bonk!, the Heavy's sandviches, the Demoman's scrumpy, and Medic's frozen organ collection.

Recently respawned, the Demoman opened the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of scrumpy, stowing it away before leaving the room. The heavy iron door designed to keep the enemy out of their spawn room opened automatically and he set off. The one-eyed Scotsman ran down the stairs leading to the courtyard and took a left, exiting into the main entrance/exit hall of his base and launching a pipe bomb at an unfortunate enemy Scout, who gibbed into many pieces on contact with the explosive. As he exited the building, he took out his sticky-bomb launcher and shot a mine in front of him. As soon as he ran underneath the mine, he detonated it, stickyjumping across the moat at a higher speed than he would have if he had simply ran across the bridge.

The layout of the opposite base was exactly the same as his own—the only recognizable difference would be the overall color scheme of the base and the positions of the hired guns inside. So, of course, the self-proclaimed "black Scottish Cyclops" was able to easily navigate the hallways, stopping just outside the courtyard as he heard the familiar beep of a sentry. Demo listened. Three beeps. That meant a Level 3 Sentry was up. He flattened himself against the wall and peeked around the doorway. The dual-minigun and rocket launcher-equipped machine, set up on the stairs directly below an entrance to the intel room, gave off a warning beep as it swiveled to face the Scotsman. He quickly retracted his head before it fired, bullets piercing the wall in the place of Demo's brains. He thought for a moment. Stickies would get rid of the sentry faster, but if someone came down to try and save the machine, he'd have to rely on his pipe bombs, which were mostly useless if they didn't score a direct hit. He pulled out his stickybomb launcher and plastered the doorframe with sticky mines, to be set off if anyone got any bright ideas about flanking him. Demo kept the detonator at hand and pulled out his grenade launcher, reloading it to replace the single grenade that had killed the enemy Scout. He poked his hand around the corner and fired in the general direction of the sentry. After two bombs went off, Demoman heard a thud and footsteps approaching him. Someone had dropped down the hole in the other respawn room leading to a narrow corridor which led to the courtyard and, if one was going that way, the entry/exit hall. Demo peeked to the right out of the corner of his eye and saw a portly man in a full-body blue Asbestos suit heading his way.

Were the Pyros portly? Because they never took their suits and masks off, for all he knew the mumbling firebugs were simply wearing an ill-fitting suit.

That was a question for another day, however; what mattered at the moment was that the pyromaniac had designs on creating extra-crispy Cyclops. Demo played dumb for a moment, pretending to focus on the sentry while keeping an eye on the Pyro, and the second he passed under that doorway…

"OW'S THAT FEEL, YA BLOCKHEAD?" The RED Demoman's gleeful cries could be heard through the BLU base as he set off a sticky-bomb trap, killing the resident Pyro. Said Pyro had come to attempt to stop the Scotsman from destroying their Engineer's sentry. Sparks shooting from the machine clearly showed the results of the Demo's continuing assault, and had caused some of its innards to catch fire. The Demoman had a swig of scrumpy before launching more pipe bombs at the sentry.

BLU Spawn
The Engineer who built this sentry was currently having a discussion with the BLU Spy. "Now, Spah, this is a prototype. It's very fragile and could easily break if you handle it wrong." He handed Spy a sapper - a metallic box connected to two magnets, designed to short-circuit and destroy RED technology in a matter of seconds. When used en-masse by an expert, a whole base's defenses can be brought down in one fell swoop, allowing other team members to assault it directly.

The Frenchman blew a ring of smoke from his cigarette before crushing it under his foot. "Laborer, please. What do you zink I am, some sort of amateur?" The Frenchman took a cigarette out from his disguise case. "Got a light?"

"Spah, I think your smoking habit can wait until I explain how it works. Now, this works just like any other sapper except for two things: in order to sap, you must place it very specifically, and when it does sap, it stores the energy it absorbs and doesn't self-destruct once the thing it's sapping is destroyed. It's got a gauge that indicates how much charge the sapper has built up, and when that gauge is full, it's ready to deploy." Engineer pointed to the gauge on the sapper that had previously served no noticeable purpose. "When it's full, ah want you to report straight back t'me, ya hear? No capping the intel—it would make you too much of a target and ruin the plan. When y'all get back, place the sapper on one 'a my machines."

Spy raised an eyebrow. "You…want me to destroy your things? Laborer, I appreciate your concern for my score, but wouldn't zis only hamper ze defense effort?"

Engineer shook his head. "Lemme finish, Spah. Put it on backwards. This activates the secondary mode I implemented which will deposit the electricity it's sapped into the machine it's attached to, supercharging it. Once supercharged, a building will work far better than it could regularly; dispensers will generate metal and give health faster, Sentries will fire faster than I could ever get it to fire with the Wrangler, and Teleporters will charge almost instantly, allowing for mass transportation of a large offensive force nearly instantly. The one universal effect is an increased amount of punishment the building can take, of course." Engie handed Spy an earpiece. "Now, you keep this on, Spah. With this, I can contact you if I need help, and you can contact me once the sapper is ready. Remember: report straight back to me once ya done, ya hear? Ah want that thing field-tested as soon as possible."

"Yes, yes, you can count on me, Laborer. Just remember you owe me that light after zis." Spy replaced the cigarette in his disguise case.

A beep was emitted from the Engineer's PDA. "See ya later, Spah. Ah gotta go fix mah sentry." Engineer ran off.

"Let's just get zis over with, Laborer." Spy selected a disguise from his kit, cloaked, and went outside.

RED Infirmary
The Infirmary: Where injuries that cannot be fixed by the Medigun are treated. Conveniently located by the entrance to the battlements so that once the injury is treated, the combatants can go right back to the battle.

"Ach, Heavy, vhat have I told about playing vis ze rattlesnakes? You know zat I have not implemented ze antivenin in my medigun yet." RED Medic was searching around in a cupboard.

"Doktor, they are such tiny animals. I do not see how such a tiny and thin animal could—" Heavy winced as a wave of pain went through his body. "—could be so dangerous."

Medic tittered. "Vell, now you know, don't you?"

Heavy chuckled. "Do not vorry, doctor. Will not happen again."

"Vell, I should hope so. Zis antivenin is proving most difficult to find…" Medic grumbled as he closed the cupboard he was looking through. "No, not there…maybe in zat vone…" He opened another cupboard and began searching.

RED Intel room
RED Engineer surveyed his work. Level 3 Dispenser. Check. Level 3 Sentry. Check. These things in the corner. Check. Just one more thing needed…

BLU Spy, disguised as a RED Pyro, walked into the room. Engie broke into a wide grin. "Pyro! Right on cue! Ah'm gonna go out and build a Teleporter down in the BLU Sewers, but there's a Spah around. D'you think y'all could spycheck by my machines until I get back?" Spy, wishing to keep up his disguise nodded. Engie clapped him on the back. "Ah knew I could count on you. See ya later." He ran off.

Spy waited until he was sure the Engineer was over in his sewers and then sapped the Sentry. He waited until the sentry was destroyed, located the sapper in the rubble and placed it on the dispenser. Spy was getting nervous by now; the Engineer knew he was there most definitely and was now probably close. The dispenser was finally destroyed and he picked the sapper up and checked the meter. Full.

BLU Sewers
The red-clad Texan banged relentlessly on his teleporter when a beep was emitted from his PDA. He jumped and gave the teleporter one last whack before he checked the device and immediately his mood took a turn for the worse when he saw what the PDA had to tell him. "Spah sappin' mah sentry!" He ran off back to his base, leaving his teleporter alone.
A few minutes later the teleporter gave off a spark and a energy control valve, accidentally damaged by the startled Engineer, fell off and clattered onto the floor.

RED Intel room

Static came in from his earpiece and then a voice came in over it. "Spah, ah've got a situation here. What's yer situation? Over."

"Everything is going according to ze plan, Laborer. I am heading over zere now. Over."

"Well, hurry the hell up, Spah! I'm takin' heavy fire! Over and out!" Gunfire and explosions were heard over the earpiece.

"Oh, quit whining, Laborer…" Spy muttered before running out of the Intel room.

RED Infirmary
"Ah, here we are…" Medic produced a syringe full of milky liquid from a cupboard. "Zis vill only sting for a second, Freund Heavy, so try not to…vhat is ze phrase Herr Engineer likes so much…ah, yes, 'squeal like a stuck pig'."

"Doktor, I am not baby, like Scout. I can take it." He winced as Medic injected the antivenin into him. "See? Does not hurt."

"Ja, ja, wunderbar…" Medic refilled the syringe and replaced it into the cupboard. "Ze antivenin vill take a little bit to vork its work its way through your system, so try not to strain yourself, mein freund."

"Da." Heavy picked up Sascha and walked for the door.

"Vell, I vould like to accompany you to ze BLU base, but I hear Herr Engineer's teleporter upstairs. I vill check if anyone needs ze healing up there and then take ze teleporter." Medic picked up his weapons and Medigun and left.

"See you on other side, doktor." Heavy went the other way and exited outside. As he left, he saw a faint blue silhouette he hated so very, very much. "I Spy vis my little eye!"

Spy, after taking a few bullets, looked behind him. "Merde." He pulled out his revolver, uncloaked and tried to get a few shots at him—no need to keep up the charade. After a few minutes of gunfire, Heavy was mildly wounded and the Spy was close to death before Lady Luck smiled upon him. Heavy's arm seized up from Minigun recoil and he dropped Sascha in surprise. The last words Medic had said to him rang through his head: "Try not to strain yourself, mein freund." Well, this would certainly be the last time he didn't listen to the doctor.

Spy, happy for the lucky break, laughed and straightened his tie. "Feel zat? It's your muscles, crying out for some exercise, fatty!" He cloaked and jumped into the sewers.

In the sewer tunnels, Spy ran for a health kit until he saw the RED Engineer's teleporter. Temptation raced through his mind—he had never had to resist sapping an unguarded building before. He radioed in on his earpiece. "Laborer, what's your situation? Over."

"Not much better, Spah. They got a Medic up here and if y'all don't hurry yer ass up, superchargin' ain't gonna be worth that much! Don't call me unless it's somethin' life-threatenin'! Over and out!" Spy caught fragments of sentence from the RED Soldier in the background. "…right…hide behind your sissy toys…call for help…die, maggot!"

That cinched it. No dallying on this one. Spy ran down the hallway and was about to turn the corner when—

"BONK!" Spy felt the agonizing sensation of his brains being bashed in for a second before he fell over and died.

"Oh, man, you shoulda seen yerself! Tryin' ta sneak up on us, eh? Yeah, dat's right, dat's what ya get when you mess wit us! You were like, 'Oh, lookit me, I'm da BLU Spy and I'm French an' crap!' and den I was like—" The RED Scout hit his bat against the wall. "'BONK!' and den you died. Yeah, yer fancy suit don't stop my bat, does it? I mean, it was like a car crash in slow motion. It's like I was watchin' ya fly through a windshield." The RED Scout grandstanded and bragged as usual before collapsing on the wall in a fit of laughter. "Yeah, yeah…"

Unnoticed by the RED Scout, momentum carried the sapper out of Spy's hands and it landed on the Engie's teleporter backwards. Scout finished his fit of shadenfreude and was about to leave when he finally noticed the supercharged teleporter. "Aw, jeez…frickin' Spy, goin' around and sappin Engie's crap…well, seems ta be workin' even better now, so I dunno why Engie'd be complainin'. Dude owes me some Bonk! fer dis."

RED Base
RED Pyro ran through the RED Base, putting up a constant firewall in front of him to try to catch the BLU Spy. The Spy had infiltrated the Intel room, disguised as him, and sapped the Engineer's buildings. One by one for some reason. Odd, but Spy had always had a reason for his actions. No doubt some kind of nefarious scheme. He would have to watch his back for at least a while after he was done with his sweep. Even more suspicious, he had neglected to take the intelligence. Pyro had always thought his best friend was a bit paranoid about Spies, but he had to admit this was the most suspicious activity the Spy had ever been up to. As he got outside the spawn room, he stopped as the ground rumbled beneath his feet. "Hrmmph?" Teufort didn't get that many earthquakes, at least, not in the time he'd lived there. Pyro walked out onto the Sniper deck to have a look-see, try to find out if the BLU Demoman had put one too many bombs under his feet while trying to stickyjump up to the deck again. He was greeted with the sight of the Heavy grumbling about something and jumping into the sewers. Right as he landed in the water, a tiny splash went up inches away from the Heavy. Pyro looked straight up to see the BLU Sniper reloading his rifle and grumbling—probably about missing the Heavy. Pyro got out his flare gun to try to catch the Sniper unawares.

Just before he was about to fire, Sniper decided to try to keep tabs on the RED Base again. An Australian voice rang out across the gap. "G'day!" Pyro dived behind cover just before a gunshot rang out and a bullet hole appeared on the wall where the firebug's head had once been. Pyro wiped imaginary sweat off his mask. "Phhewh!" He ran off to continue his firewall work—it was safer to continue with his sweep than get in a flare-bullet war with the BLU Sniper.

BLU Sniper Deck
BLU Sniper watched the bridge like a hawk. The RED Heavy had just come out of the base and opened fire on his Spy, but as he had gotten under the cover of the bridge quickly enough, the bushman couldn't provide him with cover. That had been about ten minutes ago. Sniper supposed they could have been doing anything down there except fighting. Maybe having tea. He swore he could hear a vulture screech overhead as the sun beat down on his slouch hat. Finally, the Heavy decided to get the bloody hell on with the match and jump out into the water. "There we go…"

Sniper pulled the trigger on his rifle just as the ground rumbled, throwing his shot far off-target and ensuring the Heavy's safety. "Agh, bloody hell, mate…did you make a deal with the Devil down there?" Sniper grumbled as he loaded another bullet into his rifle. "You just got lucky enough…" God, he was thirsty. He'd spent hours out in the hot sun while his Engie was probably getting some refreshing lemonade from his Dispenser. Sniper hated the summer days. He rummaged around in his pockets and pulled out some Jarate. "Naah, I ain't that thirsty…" He stowed it back away before a flash of red caught his eye and he looked back at the Sniper deck opposite him. The RED Pyro had decided to get sneaky on him. He looked through the scope of his rifle, quickly getting the firebug's head in his crosshairs. "G'Day!" He fired again and…missed. The Pyro had decided that he valued his own head. To be fair, it probably wasn't the best idea to announce that he knew he was there. This just wasn't his day—only two wankers had lost their heads today. The ground rumbled beneath his feet again and he was just thinking that the Earth did not like him today when he heard something collapsing downstairs. "Holy dooley…if I catch that bomb-lobbin' drunkie wanka, I don't care whose team he's on, I'm wringing his bloody neck…" Sniper left to check the first floor.

Bridge
RED Heavy sat on Sascha, opting to simply wait until the cramps cleared up. Why did he always have to do the exact opposite of what Medic told him to do? Medic tells him to slow down, he tries to run faster. Medic tells him to quit wasting time spychecking him and kill the guy with his Intel; he goes right ahead punching him. That was justified, though; that time he really was a Spy trying to backstab him. Filthy Frenchmen. Of all the ways to kill, he picked the least honorable. He would certainly be in the lowest caste in Mother Russia if she were not a communist country. Equality for all there; at least, more than the United States of America could say. Despite being a "free country that commie maggots like you can never hope to corrupt", as Soldier claimed, you were looked down upon in the United States for being a Russian. Before he could muse more about how much better Russia was than the USA, he noticed his cramps had cleared up. Enough sitting there like a coward and doing nothing. Time to fight.

Heavy decided to jump down into the sewers; the enemy Sniper had more than likely heard the commotion and was watching the exit of the bridge. In all likelihood, the Sniper had been there all along. The bear of a man picked up Sascha and hopped over the bridge. Initially sinking like a stone due to his and Sascha's combined weight, Heavy swam up to the surface and headed into the sewers. As he turned the corner, he saw Scout clinging onto the wall for dear life.

"Scout. Vhat kind of fight did you foolishly pick zis time?" Heavy sounded bored as if he had seen the Scout being pulled around corners many times in his career. And, due to the fact that the overly macho man had picked many fights he couldn't win in his lifetime, this was quite possibly the case.

"Look, dude. There's somethin' really freaky back there. I tink I heard a' it in High School, it's a, a, black—" Scout tried to explain what was going on.

"Oh, so it is Demoman again. Vhy do you fight that man when just one hit vis bomb kills you? Even Engineer can take bomb hit." Heavy cracked his knuckles. "Do not worry. I vill take care of it."

"Naw, man, not the Demoman. It's a black hole, man! Look, I'm a goner. Just stay outta it!" One of the Scout's hands lost his grip.

"Scout, Scout. You make ridiculous claims. Do you think I am stupid? Perhaps you are afraid you cannot pay off honor debt. Do not worry, give me Sandvich at end of day and I call it even." Heavy thought a little more. "Oh! Perhaps you view needing help as bruising to honor! Zat is vhy you try to convince me that I do not vant to go back there! Is a silly thought, but a common one. I help you and you see." Heavy jumped around the corner and revved his minigun.

Before his feet could touch the ground, the gravity created by the black hole around the corner began sucking him in. This vortex, created by the RED Engineer's supercharged, malfunctioning teleporter, was already bigger than the teleporter itself, and it showed no signs of stopping its growth. At the moment, it was as big as two Heavies. Along with the size of the black hole, the gravity created by it was growing stronger and stronger. Initially, the black hole had enough strength to make the Scout struggle to move. In a matter of minutes, it was now strong enough to pull the Heavy and Sascha into its ravenous maw.

Heavy managed to grab onto a railing next to the black hole and stop himself from getting pulled in. Sascha, not possessing hands, was not so lucky. "NOOOOOOOO!" Heavy yelled in anguish and thrust a hand out futilely as his favorite weapon was swallowed up by the vortex.

"'Kay, you can't say I didn't warn you, ya big dumb galoof. Now we're gonna lose 'cause we're down two men. Waytago, slugga."

"Scout, vhatever you do, do not let go!"

"'Kay, sage advice there, pally. Anythin' else? How 'bout 'bullets hurt'?" Scout rolled his eyes. "Sheesh."

The railing broke and Heavy was sent into the abyss.

"Crap."

The ceiling collapsed over Scout, sending rubble down. Some rocks hit Scout's hands and he recoiled them instinctively, taking a second to suck on an injured finger. He hung there suspended in midair for a second before realizing what happened. "Aw, shit."

BLU Base
BLU Sniper hustled down the stairs and turned the corner to see an extremely large hole in the floor. A light fixture snapped off and fell down the hole. "Bloody 'ell…I gotta see Engie 'bout this." Sniper drew his Tribalman's Shiv and jogged up the stairs.

BLU Spawn
BLU Spy respawned. There was a crackle over his headset as Engineer reported in. "Spah! What in Sam Hill's holdin' you up? Over."
Spy grabbed a lighter from a nearby bench and lit a cigarette. "I'm sorry, Laborer, but I was held up by the small matter of my death. Over."

"WHAT? Y'all go righ' back down there and get that sapper back or I personally will lay you out so bad—"

Spy sighed. "It's a little late for retrieval, Engineer. My Sapper PDA reports zat ze energy is being discharged right zis second. Over."

"YOU INCOMPETENT SMOKE-ADDLED YELLOW-BELLIED TURNCOAT—"

"Laborer, ze important thing is zat it definitely works for ze most part. I will go down zere and backstab ze enemy as soon as possible, so I would kindly appreciate it if you would not deafen me!"

"—RIFLE-DROPPIN' SNAIL-EATIN' ARTSY-FARTSY NO GOOD VARMIT WITH A STUPID HAT—"

Spy threw his earpiece on the ground and crushed it under his foot. "Zat…" Spy's voice was trembling with rage. "Zat was uncalled for…" He went to his supply locker and pulled out his Frenchman's Beret. He started rubbing the beret in a soothing way. "Shhh…it's okay. You are not stupid. Laborer is ze stupid one…" He replaced it.

Spy ran out of spawn, grumbling. "Vhen I backstab every single one of zose REDs, zen we shall see who has ze stupid hat—" He was interrupted by the floor collapsing under him. He grabbed onto the edge of the hole and looked down to see what was going on. He saw the second hole on the first floor and the black hole, now encompassing the entire room in the sewers. "Mon dieu…is zat…"

He looked back up and saw Sniper jogging up the stairs. "Sniper! Help!" Sniper turned his head just in time to see the BLU Spawn door be ripped off, smacking Spy in the face and knocking him into the black hole. Sniper kept running down into the Intel room as a very confused BLU team was sucked into the black hole.

Sniper ran past the resupply room in the Intel chamber and into a narrow hallway leading to the Intel room. As he nearly tripped over the body of the RED Demoman, the RED Soldier noticed him and fired rockets at him, all the while hurling slurs about Australians at him. Sniper caught something about kangaroo wives before the wall was broken open and the Soldier and Medic were sucked into the void.
He ran into the Intel room and grabbed the BLU Engineer by the shoulders. "Mate, there's some bleedin' vortex that's been suckin' everything in. We don't stop it, ain't gonna be much point in cappin' their intel much longer. You got any ideas?"

Engie punched his palm. "Spy, Spy, I am going to kill Spy, I don't care if he's on our side, he is a dead man."

"Vortex got Spook, mate. Just you an' me."

Engie shook his head and sighed. "Black hole. Rip in time and space. It's gravity is so great, not even light can escape it. If it gets ya, you might get deposited in an entirely new reality. Or you might get spit out ten minutes into the future. You can't know for sure. I think the only way to stop it is—" He was interrupted by a knife being planted in his back, courtesy of the RED Spy.

"Heartwarming." The Spy removed the knife from Engineer's back and puffed out some smoke from his cigarette. "Well, this certainly was an…interesting afternoon, but if I know that I'm probably going to die for good in a few moments, I want to know I died right after killing you nitwits." Spy drew his Ambassador. "I want you to know, Sniper…you disgust me."

Sniper, using reflexes built up from years of dealing with the Spy, gutted the Spy just as he pulled the trigger. Sniper's brains splattered against the wall and Spy collapsed in a heap on the floor. "Filthy…jar man…" Spy died, his body soon to vanish mysteriously along with Engineer's and Sniper's.

RED Sniper Deck
RED Sniper, Engineer and Pyro watched the destruction as the BLU base collapsed in on itself.

Sniper took off his hat. "Those were our men in there, mate."

Engineer slapped Sniper on the back. "Aah, they'll respawn, pardner. What I'm wonderin' is how in Sam Hill that happened."

A creaking noise was heard from outside the spawn room. "Y'all hold on a second. I think my teleporter's actin' up again." Engineer rounded the corner to find the entrance teleporter was generating a black hole as well. It only made sense; the teleporters had been so linked, that if one end of the teleporter was sapped, the other was as well…this teleporter seemed to have received the supercharging effects later than the first one, but the force generated was still enough to start ripping off the spawn door. So, of course, it took no effort for it to suck the Engineer in, his scream of surprise echoing throughout the Sniper base. Pyro, hearing the scream, ran out to help his best friend.

"Oi…oi! The bleedin' hell you doin, mate?" Sniper ran after Pyro. Both were sucked in.

The Spawn door was ripped off and the rest of RED was sucked into the abyss, clearly not in some obvious rushed attempt to get the stupid story moving.

In a final, great creak of metal, a large block of debris fell on both the exit, then entrance teleporters, destroying the black hole.

Inside the Black Hole
RED Engineer floated endlessly through dark nothingness. 'Well…', he thought. 'This is it. After inventin' a machine that essentially defeats Death, this is how I'm goin' to die. Stranded. Alone.' Engineer's Level 2 Sentry floated by behind him, still faithfully doing its duty to protect intelligence that was no longer there. 'I'm in a black hole…an' I learned back in engineerin' school that a black hole's the one place y'all don't wanna be. Unpredictable little sonuvaguns, they are. They could spit you out in a horrible reality of demons, or monsters, or even the undead. Met a fella who claimed a black hole'd spat him out in a place you could die twice, an' become the ghost of a zombie. But, that's ridiculous.'

His Level 3 Dispenser floated by in front of Engineer and he instinctively grabbed a handful of metal from the machine. ' A' 'course, worst case scenario is that the thing don't spit me out at all. And then ah just starve ta death, probably go insane from loneliness before even that happens.' Engineer pictured a man huddled in a fetal position, babbling about nonsense, a hollow shell of what had once been one of the world's smartest men, and shuddered.

'Daddy always told me…if yer gonna die, then you gotta face death with dignity. Stand tall, be a man. 'Course, he'd never been inside of a rip in time an' space before, but the general point still stands." Engie's Frontier Justice floated by him and he snatched it out of the air, before making sure he had a full clip and destroying his sentry, sending crit energy sparking through his gun. Bring on whatever nightmare reality of monsters and demons this black hole had in store for him. He was ready.

Fluttershy's house, Equestria
"Angel, you have to eat more than that…come on…" Fluttershy nudged a half-eaten carrot towards the white rabbit, who crossed his arms and turned away while giving a little "Harumph."

"Just eat the rest of the carrot, come on…" Fluttershy stopped as Angel shrank back into his pen. "Angel? What's wrong?" Angel pointed behind Fluttershy.

Fluttershy turned around to find a large black spot in the sky over Everfree Forest. "Oh, my. What is that? Maybe Twilight Sparkle or…or another pony knows…"

A leaf fell from a tree and landed on Fluttershy's flank, sending her into a dead faint.
> Meet the Team
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

RED Scout floated around the black hole with his arms crossed. He'd been floating around in the debris-filled nothingness for what seemed like forever, with no one to kill and nothing to break.

And it. Was. Terrible.

The hyperactive boy was bored out of his mind, with there being nothing to do. No Heavies to taunt about their weight, no Engies to annoy into a rage bordering on psychosis, no Soldiers to aggravate by rebelling, nothing. "This sucks!" He wished a BLU would float along already just so he'd have something to shoot or beat to death, or…something! Hell, at least getting killed would break up the monotony, even if it was permanent in here. Worst of all, he had no idea where his hats were; for all they knew, that punk over on the enemy team was trying on his precious Bonk Helm, drinking his energy drinks! The idea simply infuriated the Scout to no end.

That was his stuff.

His.

He hadn't read up on black holes in high school enough to know what they did besides devouring everything in its path—the only part he'd had the attention span to listen to was that particular part, and then he'd earned himself another detention by doodling on his desk depicting the principal having his skull caved in by a baseball bat—so for all he knew, he would just keep floating around and doing nothing for the rest of his life. At this point, he actually missed the Soldier calling him an insubordinate maggot, ordering him to do twenty push-ups and then blocking the exit until either they were done or he was knocked unconscious.

Scout took out his bat and was in the middle of trying to clean Spy's blood off of it when a faint light in front of him caught his eye. "Huh?" The light grew brighter and brighter. "Aw, I'm dyin' of boredom. 'bout time, too." Scout awkwardly made a few motions like he was trying to swim through the blackness. "Uhhh…yer gonna hafta get a little closer, I can't get to ya from here…"

The light immediately started generating a vacuum, pulling Scout towards it. "Ey, ey, ey, not so rough-" Scout's Bonk Helm smacked him on the back of the head as it got pulled into the light as well. Scout, using his quick reflexes, grabbed it. "Ey, I found my hat!"

There was suddenly a bright flash and Scout found himself in a futuristic-looking office, with no doors he recognized. There was a desk and a window, which revealed that the office was very, very high up. An alien-looking aircraft flew by the window, with twin turbines at the rear of it keeping it up. The occupant of the office was an aged man with white hair, a white beard, and dark slate grey eyes. He was wearing a nice green suit with a black undershirt, and he appeared to have been busy before the Scout appeared.

"What the—? Who are you? How did you get in here?" The surprised man got up from his desk, placing one hand on it to support him. Scout suddenly felt a sharp tug at his gut and was yanked off his feet backwards back into the black hole. The force of the tug sent Scout backflipping through the empty space, passing by several ovals with footage of stuff going on in the center—one could only assume these were portals to somewhere.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa—" Next thing he knew, he was in a pitch-black room. "Aaah…don't tell me some chucklehead summoned Cthulhu again…"

"Scout?" A gruff voice rang out in the darkness, belonging to a certain rocket-hopping mercenary. "Are you here?"

"Dat depends on which team yer on." Scout felt around the room. "Dere's gotta be some sorta light switch here…"

"Don't worry, son, I'm on your side. I think. Fair warning, though, if you aren't on my team, you're getting a shovel to the face." Soldier started feeling around and found a lever. "Here we go…" Soldier pulled the lever and the lights came on, revealing a room full of blocky green creatures. They were all in a cave of some sort, which looked like it had been extensively mined. The green creatures started emitting a hiss like a cartoon bomb about to go off.

"It's been an honor serving with you, son…" RED Soldier stood up straight and saluted the Scout before the force tugged on their gut again and sent them back into the alternate reality hall, screaming.

"Dat was too close…" Scout muttered while hurtling through the white land of portals. "Any idea what's goin' on?"

"I didn't know any better, I'd say it's Engie…but he's American. So my first suspect's that damn dirty Nazi Doc on the other team, second is their Engie, the draft-dodgin' sonuvabitch, and then our Medic." Soldier pounded his fist into his palm. "I find out what happened there, there ain't gonna be enough left to bury."

"Dude, our Medic? Don'tcha think dat's a little paranoid of ya? Ya don't even have any proof he was a Nazi—"

"He's a German! That's good enough for me! Listen up, son, I personally killed 6,078 of those bastards to preserve your right to not be horribly experimented on, among other things, and if you don't think that deserves a little more respect from you—" Soldier looked a little ahead and to his left. "You're gonna be alone for a while, private. Try not to crap your pants like a hippie."

A piece of debris from what was once Teufort smacked into the Soldier, sending him spinning off and away from Scout, who cringed and looked at Soldier's cartwheeling body. "Jeez, dat's gonna hurt. Well, ya know what Private Haircut always says…" He put on a bad imitation of Soldier's authoritan voice. "Pain is weakness leaving the body." He put his normal voice on. "If dat's true, I don't tink he has much weakness left ta lose." He turned back in front of him to see a portal to someplace extremely dark—he could barely see the faint images of something that looked vaguely like streamers hanging from the ceilings. Was he about to crash a surprise party? Already drawing the conclusion he'd be in a party, Scout began hoping it was one with alcohol; his teammates had never let him drink and he really wanted to try some vodka.

Wait. Those weren't streamers...

What he saw sent him into a screaming fit of absolute terror.

He continued screaming as he hurtled through space and time for hours. And he continued screaming until something grabbed him and punched him in the back of the head.

"Little man stop screaming like baby. Teammates are here." A familiar Russian accent sounded disgusted at Scout's fear. The RED Heavy was accompanied by Medic, Demoman, Sniper and Spy. The delinquent simply huddled into the fetal position and whimpered.

"Ach, you look like you have seen ein gespent." Medic, who had found Heavy, looked concerned for the young man. "Do I even vant to know vhat happened?"

"No, Doc. You don't. You just don't." Scout shuddered.

"Ze poor boy. What's the matter, did a rainbow terrorize you again?" Spy mocked Scout's terror and absently threw a spent cigarette away while laughing. Demo chuckled at this jab while the Medic facepalmed.

"Ach, he has been mentally scarred by somezing, schweinhund. Try to be a little more sensitive—"

They heard a faint "Help!" ahead of them. Their Engineer was clutching onto his Dispenser and was trying to wave them down. "Fellas! Help me!" As he passed by, Medic grabbed Engie's hand and pulled as he let go of the Dispenser, sending it off into some distant land. Engie adjusted his hardhat. "Much obliged."

Medic brushed it off. "Ve are a team. Ve do zese things for each ozzer. Herr Engineer, you ah a man of science, ja? Vhat is going on in here?"

Engie fixed his goggles. "Well, the black hole appears to be in the process of spitting us out, though it seems to be having a very hard time deciding where it wants us. Ah just exited a world populated by talking bananas. Very confusing, ah'll tell you that."

"Ve need to find Pyro und Soldier. If we ah to survive wherever we ah going, ve need to stay togezzah." The Medigun floated by and Medic grabbed it out of the air. "Ah, here ve go. Does anyone need ze healing?" No response. "Nein? Vell, zen, now ve devote our attention to figuring out why zat thing appeared. Ze rips in time und space do not simply appear by themselves—"

"Doc? We got a problem." Engie pointed at the portal directly in front of them. It showed a landscape pretty closely resembling what he thought Hell looked like. There was an active volcano in the distance, and a huge dragon made of rock was far closer than that. The rock dragon's head was on fire, and it had wickedly sharp horns on its head that could easily gut a man if it wanted to. There were many chinks in the dragon's hide, in which lava was flowing, but never spilling out, strangely enough.

"Lads? Anyone here…got any guns? Lost me explosives…" The mercs shook their heads. "Lost my gun when this thing started spittin' me out. Sorry, y'all…"

"Well, it's official. We're screwed." Scout concluded.

Just then, something whizzed by and smacked the team, sending them hurtling in that direction. Scout caught a glimpse of the thing that had slammed into them and saved them from certain death—it looked a lot like a phone booth. A phone booth? In a rip in time and space? Scout's curiosity overwhelmed the effects of his mental scarring and tried to keep himself from spinning to get a look at the booth. As the booth departed towards another portal depicting a large forest, Scout saw a glimpse of someone looking out the small windows to look at what he had hit—no—not someone.

Some pony.

A light brown pony whose mane was a darker shade of brown. There was something about the phone booth he couldn't quite place…it looked like something on a TV show he had once watched. There was a surprised look on the strange pony's face before he popped back down from the window and the phone booth entered the forest portal.

"You got hit with the booth, too, son?" Soldier overtook Scout, doing backflips. "Met up with Pyro a little while after we separated, then that crazy thing hit us. Nice to see the team's all here, I guess…"

Pyro did his best to wave at Scout as he flew ahead of him, which was a comical sight to see as he was doing all kinds of somersaults during his attempt.

"Ay, man, there's somethin' in there. You ain't gonna believe this, but dere's a frickin' pony in dat thing." Scout hurriedly explained.

Soldier raised his eyebrow. "Did you hit your head? Why would a pony be in a phone booth? Can they even fit?"

"Oi, I saw it too, mate. An honest-to-god pony was drivin' that thing." Sniper piped up.

"No one asked for your opinion, didgeridoo!" The crazed patriot snarled at Sniper.

"Didgeridoo?"

"Quit actin' like young'uns, boys! We're about to hit that...thing!" Engie yelled back to his teammates just before he went through. Having no control over their flight, the rest soon followed suit and blacked out right as they hit the portal. "Yeah, that...that one kinda got away from me..."
________________________________________________________

In the dimension the mercs had just entered, Twilight Sparkle was organizing her books. Her assistant, a baby dragon named Spike, was stumbling over the heavy workload he had to carry—at least one dozen textbooks.

"Here, let me get some of that for you." Twilight levitated some books from Spike's arms using her magic and placed them in their proper spots.

As she replaced the last book, Fluttershy walked in. "Um, Twilight? Do you have a moment? I-I mean, if it's no trouble…"

Twilight turned to Fluttershy and smiled. "Oh, hi, Fluttershy. Spike and I were just doing some cleaning."

Fluttershy looked at the ground and pawed at it with her hoof. "Oh, that's okay…I mean, I can come back later, I mean, if I'm bothering you…"

Twilight shook her head. "No, it's no trouble at all. Sit down, we'll have some tea. Spike, could you put the kettle on?" Spike nodded and went off to make some tea. Twilight walked over and sat down by a table, Fluttershy following her lead. "So, what do you need?"

"Well, I was tending to the animals outside my home, when Angel Bunny got really scared and pointed at the sky. I turned around and there was a big hole in the sky above the Everfree Forest. It really spooked the animals, so after I woke up, I came straight to you. I don't really know anyone else who would know what it is."

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "After you woke up?"

"Oh, well, I got so scared, I guess I fainted. But it was really scary…"

Typical Fluttershy. Being as timid as she was, she must have been extremely terrified when a hole in the sky popped up for no reason. "Maybe I have some books on it. Could you please describe what this…hole looked like?"

Fluttershy propped her head up with her hooves, thinking. "You know those hypnotism glasses Pinkie Pie bought from a magic shop a while back? The ones with the big green swirly patterns on the lenses? It kind of looked like that, except the designs were moving and the hole was completely black except for the swirly patterns. They were white."

Twilight raised an eyebrow again. "You saw a gigantic pair of hypnotism glasses painted black appear from nowhere above the Everfree Forest?"

The yellow Pegasus shook her head. "No, I was thinking more like just the lens. Only it wasn't a glasses lens—oh, I'm doing a horrible job at describing it, aren't I?"

"It's fine, I'll just look out the window." Twilight climbed up to her bedroom and took a look out the window. The black hole was still outside, over the Everfree Forest. Outside, she noticed other ponies had gathered around and started wondering what it was. "Huh, you're right…that is strange, I think I might have a book around here describing it…" The studious unicorn climbed back down and began searching around her books telekinetically. "No, no, no…" After a few minutes of this, she resignedly shut the books and replaced them on the shelves. "I'm sorry, Fluttershy, but I'm afraid I can't find any books on this. I'll get Applejack and Rainbow Dash and we'll go in and try and find out what's going on." Twilight left the library to gather up her friends.
___________________________________________________________

"Sniper? Sniper? Sniper, wake up, you damn maggot!" Sniper awoke to the sounds of Soldier yelling at him to wake him up.

The half-asleep Australian sat up and grumbled, "Solly, could you by any chance pick a more polite way to wake me up—" Sniper noticed he was staring into the face of a pony with the Soldier still had battle helmet on—with holes in it for his ears to poke up through-and a hair patch by where his chin would be that resembled a 5:00 shadow. The rest of his fur had a cameo pattern, his mane was colored blond and cut extremely short along with his tail, and he had a picture on his flank of a rocket with the American flag in the background. And boy, did this pony look pissed.

"I want to know which one of you numbnuts slipped me a hippie drug, and who gave you this drug so that I can kill him with my bare damn hands when I get back home!" the pony barked at Sniper.

"Soldier? That you, mate? Bloody hell, you have a lot more hooves than I remember you havin'." Sniper chuckled at idea of the uber-manly Soldier being turned into something universally considered "for girls".

"I wouldn't laugh if I were you, considering you're one of those prancing show ponies also. At least, that's what your damn hippie drugs are making me see…"

Sniper looked at his hands to see they had become hooves. His arms—legs? The two are interchangeable when you're a pony—were colored dark grey. His mane was largely hidden under his hat, but it, along with his tail, was colored light grey. His own flank had a rifle's crosshairs for a... logo of some sort? The Australian jumped about a foot in the air. "Holy dooley, I don't think anyone slipped you a drug, mate. I'm seein' it too! What in the bloody hell—"

"Pfft. Yeah, right. I'm a pony now. I suppose the ghost of Shakespearicles is gonna fly by at any moment. Nice prank, didgeridoo, now let me know who's in on it. It's that punkass Scout, isn't it?" Soldier walked over to his shovel jammed into a tree and attempted to pull it out without using his teeth. Due to his new lack of opposable thumbs, this was quite impossible. "Damn…thumbs…why…aren't…you…working?" Each word was punctuated by a failed attempt to grab the shovel and a facehoof by Sniper.

The rest of the team was slowly coming to. As soon as the Scout, a red pegasus with a winged shoe logo who still had his trademark hat, dog tags and ear-piece along with front hoof wrappings, came to, he immediately started barfing up all his meals for the past two days.

Engineer had become an orange pony with a light blond mane and tail, and still had his lopsided hardhat and goggles on. His image was of two gears overlapping each other and a picture of a wrench in the background.

Heavy was, as usual, larger than the rest of the team. He towered above them all, but as he woke up his mind was preoccupied with finding Sascha, his ammunition belt jingling and clanking as he rustled through the bushes. He was red with a shaven mane, a black tail and had a picture of a minigun barrel, muzzle flash flaring as it fired at an unseen enemy, with the Soviet hammer and sickle logo in the background on his flank.

Pyro still had his suit and gas mask on, which covered up his mane and tail and obscured his mark. So as far as RED team knew, Pyro hadn't really changed that much.

Spy still wore his fancy suit and ski mask. His coat underneath was yellow, and on his rump he had simply a picture of a knife—but then, wasn't that all Spy really needed to describe his special talent?

The journey through dimensions had not given the Demo back his eye, much to his dismay. Even worse, while his scrumpy had made it through the portal, the bottles had all shattered upon impact with the ground, coating the grass in alcohol. "Ach, cripe…we're in the middle a' nowhere, we've been turned inta wee horses an' me scrumpy's gone…a' least it can't get any worse." The pony had a black coat of fur and a tail to match, although his mane was mostly covered by his cap. He rubbed his temple with his hoof. "Me bleedin' head…at least we know ponies can get hangovers, right doc?" Demoman-or was it Democolt now?-looked over at Medic and immediately started stifling laughter. "Bloody 'ell, Soldier was sayin' some awful things 'bout you bein' a girly fairy, doc, but…"

"Vhat? I checked, I do not have ze vings!" The doctor still wore his battle labcoat, and his hair coat was pure white. He had a brown mane styled like it was when he was human, and his mark depicted a red cross. And he had a horn on the top of his head that allowed him to perform feats of magic.

"Bloody hell, you don' see it, mate? 'S right there, on your forehead."

Medic tried to feel his forehead with his hooves, but they were stopped by his horn. "Hmmm…most interesting…ze ponies in zis world must have fierce competition from predators if zey had to evolve vings for areal evasion und ze horns to charge enemies with…"

"It jus' looks funny tae me." The Demo's words went unnoticed by the doctor as he realized he could bend his legs in ways ponies on Earth could not, and began musing about extra joints allowing extremities to bend irregularly.

"Well, you gentlemen are reacting to being turned into a farm animal quite nicely." Spy paused to breathe out a puff of smoke and grab another cigarette. "But I, for one, would like to find out what zis place is and if there is any semblance of civilization around here."

"Let's wait until Scout quits his vomitin' fit. Poor boy, teleportation sickness. Very rarely happens, but he'll get over it soon enough." As soon as Engie finished his sentence, Scout's stomach ran empty and he wiped his face with his hoof.

"Ugh, I don't think I'll evah look at cupcakes da same way again…" He saw a gleam in front of him and he parted the branches. In front of him was Prince Tavish's Crown…and behind that, a large pile of the group's hats. "Ay, fellas! I found our hats!" The delinquent grabbed Demo's crown and tossed it to him, accidentally hitting him in the face with it. "Alright, here's yer Ten Gallon, Engie…an' yer goggles, Doc…oh, hey, dere's my beanie…"
______________________________________________________________

Twilight Sparkle, Applejack and Rainbow Dash trekked through the Everfree Forest, heading in the direction of the black hole. Dash flew above the treetops to make sure they were going the right way, which left Twilight and Applejack to make small talk along the way.

Rainbow Dash surveyed the forest from above, keeping her eye on the large spot that had appeared in the sky for no apparent reason. It hadn't really done anything so far but that didn't mean it wouldn't start destroying Ponyville or whatever. Personally, that thing worried Rainbow, though she would never in her life admit it—whatever that thing was, she had a feeling in her gut that it was just as unnatural as the Everfree Forest and the way it survived without ponies, or as unnatural as Zecora had appeared to everyone before they actually gave her a chance to talk.

Speaking of Zecora…

"Rainbow Dash! Y'all should come down here, we're stoppin' by Zecora's to see what she thinks." Applejack's southern drawl reached her ears as weak and tinny, but nevertheless Rainbow Dash flew back down and landed. Twilight Sparkle knocked on the door to Zecora's hut.

Zecora, a zebra with rings lining her neck and her left leg opened the door. "Twilight Sparkle and her company of two, what can Zecora do for you?"

The group walked in and took a seat. "Zecora, I don't know if you've noticed or not, but there's a rather large hole in the sky above this forest. We came here wondering if you knew anything about it." Twilight looked around the hut. It hadn't changed much since she had last visited it; the traditional greeting masks were still on the wall, the pot used for cooking herbal remedies still hung over a fire pit, etc.

Zecora nodded. "I noticed that of which you speak, but I cannot provide the answer you seek. If you want the truth, you must go and see, but I am about to be busy, so I can't go with thee."

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. "Thee? Who the hay says that anymore?"

Zecora shrugged. "It rhymes with 'see'."

Twilight Sparkle took on a confused expression. "Wait, what—"

"Oh, is that the time? I really must go. I wish you luck...tell what you find I said hello." The Zebra hurriedly put on a saddlebag and left.

Twilight galloped out of the hut after her, her friends following close behind. "Wait, how do you know it's even sentient—" Zecora was already out of sight. Twilight sighed. "Let's...let's just go, girls."

As the group walked through the forest, Applejack took occasional suspicious glances at the black hole. She was always a superstitious pony (She had, after all, been a firm believer in the rumor that Zecora was a witch; though to be fair, everyone in Ponyville except Twilight and Applebloom had believed it as well), and the appearance of this…thing in the sky had already put her on edge enough. She'd half a mind to refuse Twilight's request to scout it out in the forest and find out what it was, but natural curiosity had won out. Now that appeared to be active—it was bending and stretching and looked more like an oval than a circle now—the farm pony was warier than ever about approaching it and a bit of her brain was even suggesting she turn back. As her unbending pride wouldn't allow her to show weakness to her friends, however, this was not considered an option. Still, it figured that something so creepy would be in the Everfree Forest…

A loud grinding noise made the trio jump about a foot in the air out of surprise. Or, in Rainbow Dash's case, veer off course sharply and crash into a tree. A light brown pony popped out from behind a tree with a futuristic device clenched between his teeth. "Sorry 'bout that, girls. You lot alright?"

Applejack shook off her surprise. "Celestia, Doc, y'all could give a pony a heart attack like that. Jus' what in the hay are you doin' out here in the middle of the forest?"

The pony looked annoyed. "Stop calling me Doc. I told you, it's the Doctor."

"Well, all right then, 'the Doctor', that don't explain why yer out here in the middle of the woods with…that thing."

The Doctor glanced down at the object in his mouth. "Oh, this? It's…a pen. I'm doing a little work out here and Ditzy Doo usually crashes around here in the middle of her mailroute. She always forgets a pen to give to ponies. You know, to sign the paperwork for packages. I've learned to be prepared for these things."

Applejack examined the "pen". "Mighty strange-lookin' pen you have there…"

"Oh, I got this a long time ago, back when I was young and foalish. It's a novelty item I was perfectly willing to part with, you know how you were when you were a filly." The Doctor rolled his eyes and chuckled at himself, dropping the "pen" in progress. "Excuse me…"

Dash rubbed her forehead and shook off the pain. "Well, Doctor, we'd love to stay and chat it up, but right now we're checking out this big black spot in the sky—" The cyan Pegasus' eyes lit up as she had a thought. "Hey, you're an intellectual type, right? You have any ideas about what that is?"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Blimey, you've never heard of a black hole?" The confused expressions taken on by the three mares in front of him answered his question. "Right, I'd have thought you'd have something on this, Twilight, but…a black hole's a rip in the fabric of reality. Sometimes it just sits there, sometimes it takes on a great gravitational pull that eats up everything in sight, and sometimes…sometimes it spits out some of its contents somewhere else. If a pony were unfortunate enough to end up inside one, they could be spit out twenty million years into the future, or fifty years in the past, or twelve minutes before the event happened, or they could end up…somewhere else."

"Somewhere else?" Twilight put her hoof under her chin thoughtfully. "Somewhere else as in…wait, what if…you mean…?"

The Doctor nodded. "A rip in the fabric of reality isn't just an overly random time machine. With these, you can travel through both time and space, ending up in an alternate universe, such as a dystopian reality where our dear princess is a ruthless tyrant, or another one where Trixie accidentally summons a great and powerful beast in a mad bid for power and revenge, or…blimey, there are an infinite amount of universes out there. Too many to name, really. Don't be alarmed, now…" The looks of confusion had changed to masks of varying degrees of fear and panic. "That one just seems to be doing nothing for the time being. Look, it's even gotten smaller, that means it's about to pop out. Plus, travel between universes is completely, entirely impossible. Believe me, I know."

"So, one of them magic thingamajigs—" Applejack started.

"It's science, Applejack, not magic! There's a difference." The Doctor interrupted.

"Whatever, they could just drop in outta nowhere and get Applebloom?"

The Doctor shook his head and waved his hoof in a dismissing manner. "Not unless she was playing around with the fabric of reality. Black holes need a powerful catalyst in order to set them off…such as an extremely large discharge of energy, or—"

Twilight interrupted, beginning to understand what the Doctor was talking about. "A time paradox?"

"No, no, those summon Reapers. Sort of clock roaches, live in the Time Vortex, basically eat everything around it and stabilize wounds in time. A rather good guess, though." The Doctor's ears perked up. "Excuse me; I think that's Ditzy Doo crashing right now. I must go." The Doctor picked up his pen off the ground and walked back into the forest.

Twilight looked up through the treetops at the newly-identified black hole. The Doctor was right—it had grown a lot smaller than when she had first seen it. Nothing to worry about, but certainly something to write to the princess about; if this truly was the first time such an event had happened in such a long while that no books she'd read had any information on it—and the amount of books she had perused in her life would no doubt fill a dragon's cave if they suddenly materialized—then she certainly had to contact the princess and let her know about it.

Say, wait a minute—how did the Doctor know anything about them, anyway? Judging from the way the townsfolk had reacted to the dimensional anomaly, no one in Ponyville knew anything about these—except the Doctor. Of course, the Doctor wasn't a local in Ponyville; often he had been asked which town he hailed from, but he kept telling everyone he "wasn't from around here", as if such a vague response would answer much. In fact, much about the Doctor was shrouded in mystery; only Ditzy Doo seemed to be a close enough friend of his to know much about his life, and she wasn't telling. At least, not in an intelligible manner. In this way, the Doctor was much like Zecora—only Zecora was given a much less warm welcome here, for reasons she had yet to understand. Twilight found it amusing that Pinkie Pie, who laughed in the face of abject terror in death when they first met, was scared of a zebra enough to write up a warning song about her.

Just another logical contradiction Pinkie created; Twilight had learned to just roll with it a long time ago.

"Twi?" Applejack asked tentatively, snapping the purple unicorn out of her thoughts. "Ah don't mean to bother you none, but…well, we know what it is now. So, that means we can roll on back ta Ponyville and tell everyone about it now, right?"

Twilight smiled and jokingly said, "It's alright, Applejack, this place creeps me out a little, too." She laughed at the indignant look on Applejack's face and continued before the farmer could argue. "Come on, let's call down Rainbow Dash and head on back."

"Allright…" Applejack grumbled and looked up at the sky. "Rainbow!"
Rainbow Dash was gone. "Where is that mare—Rainbow Dash! Git over here, we're goin'!"
She was answered with a baseball beaning Twilight on the forehead.

"Ow!" Twilight levitated and examined the baseball. "What the-what's a baseball doing in the forest?"

Rainbow Dash's head poked out from between some tree leaves. "Hey, girls! You gotta check this out—oh, sorry, Twilight…" Twilight glared at Rainbow while rubbing her forehead. "I just had to try this baseball bat out…but I found a big pile of strange stuff! Come on!"

Twilight shook her head. "Dash, we've got to go. We're risking enough being here in the first place, let's just head back before a Manticore or something finds us!"

"Aw, come on, Twilight! I just know you're curious about what it is! I mean, you honestly don't want to check out stuff like this?" Dash brought out the Scout's scattergun, modified for hoof use.

"What is that?" Twilight studied the gun. "What does it do?"

Dash spit out the gun and shook her head, grinning. "I have no idea!"

Twilight looked at the weapon for a few minutes, puzzled. Eventually, her scientific curiosity won out over her want to get out of the forest. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to take a look…"

Applejack sighed. "Y'all can't seriously be considerin'—" The two had already left. Applejack performed a facehoof and gave chase.

Rainbow Dash picked up a wooden baseball bat with a relatively large crack down the middle, which was held together by a ribbon out of a pile of weapons. "Check out all this gear! This Babe Ruth pony really likes baseball!"

Twilight levitated a Force-A-Nature, a stock shotgun, and a pistol from the pile, all modified for hoof use. "How do you know it belongs to a pony named 'Babe Ruth'?"

Dash shrugged. "I'm assuming that's his name. It was on the baseball, anyhow…"

Twilight pulled the trigger on the pistol using magic and jumped as it fired. "Interesting…is it some kind of noisemaker? I don't see why, we have fireworks for that…Dash, how'd you find these? They're so…dull and grey…I know I wouldn't notice them in the forest if they were just lying around."

Behind her, Dash hit the baseball with the Sandman again just to see how far she could hit it. "Well, I would have passed them by, but I found this thing sparking and glowing and stuff—" She flew over and grabbed the Engie's Frontier Justice. "—so I flew down to investigate."

Applejack grabbed a stock axe out of the pile. "Maybe it's one 'a them lumberjacks?"

Twilight dropped the guns and levitated up all the kukris in the pile. "Holy…who in Equestria would ever need a knife this big? This isn't a knife, it's a small sword!"

"Oh, wow! Check this out!" Dash dove into the pile for a second and then came out, struggling to bring out a six-barrel, shoulder-mounted monstrosity of a weapon.

Applejack dropped the brass horseshoes she'd been examining ("Ah would not wanna git on this pony's bad side…) and gave the Pegasus pony a hoof.

Twilight's jaw dropped. "That's an awful large noisemaker…"

Applejack prodded the gun with a hoof. "How the hay's this thang work? Ah don't see no lever ta pull, like on the other things…" She rotated the barrel manually a quarter turn.
__________________________________________________________

Scout hovered about a foot up in the air, trying to balance his Towering Pillar of Hats while he flew. "Hey, fellas! Lookit, I think I'm gettin' da hang a' dis flyin' bidness!" Engineer had never been happier to have his Safe N' Sound headphones—the boy had been pestering them about ten minutes about how he could fly now. Engie didn't know exactly what his team had done to deserve this ungodly torture—killing nine people thousands of times over probably hadn't done wonders for his karma—but he did know that until Scout decided he wanted Engie's attention as well and got the headphones, he was safe and sound from Scout's verbal assault.

Medic, however, was at his breaking point. "Yes, shweinhund! Ve know you ah flying, you have been telling us nonstop for far too long! Now be silent, shtupid boy!"

"Ah, yer no fun, Doc! I ain't even tryin' ta be annoyin'! I'll tell ya what, though, you wanna hear annoyin?" The boy's face took on a positively malicious grin.

The doctor looked absolutely horrified at this. "Nein…you wouldn't…Scout, if you do it, I promise you I vill perform torturous acts upon your body zat vould make ze bravest schweinhund beg for—"

"NEED A DISPENSA HERE! NEED A DISPENSA HERE! NEED A DISPENSA HERE!"

Medic tore out clumps of his mane—an impressive feat, considering his lack of fingers and opposable thumbs-and let out a scream of agony. "I VILL KILL YOU UND KEEP YOUR HEAD ALIVE AND ZEN ATTATCH A DEVICE TO YOUR BRAIN ZAT CONSTANTLY STIMULATES ZE AREA WHICH REGISTERS PAIN—" He continued his crazed, rambling death threat while Engie shook his head and most of the team looked like they had half a mind to murder their teammate right there and then.

"Heavy, you done yet?" Engie'd had no desire to stay in a strange forest which could easily have pony-eating wildlife in it for half as long as they ended up staying, and they hadn't budged an inch from their landing spots yet.

"Nyet! I must find Sascha! She must be so scared, all alone in wilderness, unable to move! I do not find her, I lose honor! And what if I lose Sandvich? Oh, I must search harder, he must be terrorizing poor woodland creatures—" The Russian's head snapped straight up from the bush he was rummaging in as his ears flattened.

"What is it? Did—did you find somethin'?" Engineer began scanning the parameter.

Heavy's head slowly turned around as he snorted in rage. "Someone. Touched. Sascha."

Engie's face turned white. "N-now, pardner…let's not git hasty and kill anyone afore they get a chance to talk now…ah mean, if we screw up first contact now, it's gonna set a real bad image fer us—"

"Leetle pony touched Sascha. Is inexcusable."

"But—" Heavy had already galloped off into the forest. Engie sighed in exasperation. "Soldier, get Heavy before he kills an innocent within the first ten minutes of our arrival."

Soldier was loath to do anything the Texan said—the fact that he gave him an order was considered insubordination in his mind—but he wouldn't give him a hard kick to the face this once due to the fact that he was offering him a chance to escape the verbal torture Scout was inflicting on his ears. So he ran off after Heavy, muttering things about "Russkies" and "typical Commie behavior, harming civvies" in the meantime.

Scout grabbed the Pyro's Whiskered Gentleman set off his face and put it on, mimicking taking a sip of tea. "I say, Pyro, dis is a rather smashing cuppa tea. Ya know what would make it taste better? Fire."

Pyro grabbed his monocle and fake facial hair back, stowing it away inside his suit. "Mphhy hu mpihll—"

Scout cupped a hoof to his ear. "Oh, what's dat? I don't speak Pyronese, sorry. Ye'll hafta speak up." A baseball then smacked the annoyance on the back of the head, making him spill his hats and come crashing to the floor. This prompted an uproar of laughter from the team.

"Ach, it's aboot time ya got back down tae earth, lad!" Demo laughed at his own horrible pun, prompting a storm of hiccups to occur.

"Aaw, shuddup…" He froze as he identified the ball that had hit him. Autographed by Babe Ruth.

"Aaaaw, did zat sting? Good. Maybe it damaged ze section of your brain zat controls speech, and if you talk too much your brain vill simply lock up." Medic was looking far more pleased than he should at the prospect of his teammate getting ironic brain damage.

"Waitaminute…dat's my ball…" Scout grabbed his ball and took off into the sky in the direction the ball had come from.

"Oh, don't be such a baby! Ze brain heals ovah time!" Medic turned back to his team. "No, it doesn't."

"C'mon, Doc…let's get goin' after him before the boy hurts himself…" Engie walked off as the team reluctantly followed behind.
_________________________________________________________

Rainbow Dash dragged a large claymore sword out of the pile. "Whoa…this is one dangerous pony we're dealing with!"

Twilight had found Engie's toolbox and was surrounding herself with the blueprints contained inside. "Amazing…this is some very complex technology, um…" She read something on the bottom of the blueprints. "Dell Cohnager. That's his name. The colt's a genius. I mean, I don't even understand all of it, but I'm pretty sure he's dabbling in teleportation technology…I mean, I can do that myself, but you don't need to use magic for these things! Think of what he could invent if we found him—"

The unicorn was interrupted by the aforementioned sword yelling, "HEADS!"

Applejack stared at the Eyelander for a few seconds. "Y'all, I gotta, um...check on Apple Bloom. And buck some apples. Yeah, them apples ain't gonna buck themselves, ya know." She chuckled nervously before taking a few steps away.

Something rather large soared over Applejack's head. "Manticore!" Rainbow Dash yelled before bucking it in the face. As it flipped over onto its back, the number of bruises and bloody wounds on the animal became apparent.

Twilight walked over and tentatively poked the animal before checking its heartbeat. "It's dead." She announced.

"Dead? What, did a Hydra kill it?" The Pegasus asked.

"No, it isn't bitten at all. Judging from the bruises, it was beaten to death, and I don't think that's what Hydras do. Besides, I can't think of a reason why it would kill a Manticore just to throw its corpse at us…but then again, I'm no Fluttershy when it comes to animals..." The bushes rustled to their right.

"Git ready, girls…we may have ta fight…" Applejack grabbed a pickaxe in her teeth. The rustling grew closer and louder—whatever was menacing them apparently didn't care much for stealth.

Heavy Weapons Guy pushed his way through the final bush, breathing hard with a large gash in his right shoulder and looking much like Fluttershy had near the end of the Gala fiasco, with dirt littering his coat along with various small branches and leaves. His face displayed nothing but pure rage as he sucked in a large breath. "Кто прикоснулся к моему ребенку?"

The three mares backed up from this strange pony before them. Although he was apparently speaking pure gobbledegook to them, his voice carried an overtone of unmistakeable anger. The Russian pressed forward until he had backed up Twilight against a tree and spoke as he shoved his face dangerously close to hers.

"Я хочу, чтобы вы поняли что-то, пони. Это мой ребенок. Она видела меня через много успешных боя, помогло мне убить много трусов, защищали наш драгоценный интеллект во мно о раз! Саша, доктор и я ношу весом всей команды на наши плечи. Она является самой драгоценной для меня, так что вы. Не надо. ощупь. Мой ребенок. Понимаете ли вы, что?" Heavy barked out the last sentence.

"Okay, okay! I have absolutely no idea what you just said, but you look really angry! So, um, we'll just clear out and let you go on your angry…psychotic way!" Twilight nodded her head furiously. "You understand me, right?"

Heavy grumbled and walked away from the unicorn. He picked up Sascha in his teeth, effortlessly dragged it over to her and shoved it in her face. "You see this, tiny pony? Ees Sascha. You do not touch Sascha. She is my gun. Not yours. Are ve clear?"

Twilight nodded furiously. "Yes, yes! Now that you're speaking Equestrian, I can understand you perfectly. We're sorry to have bothered you, Mr…"

Heavy dropped Sascha. "I am Heavy Weapons Guy. Call me Heavy, that is what they call me on job. I don't tell you real name; Engineer is smart, he vill make big machine to take us home."

"Right, Heavy. So, please don't kill us…and we'll just head back to Ponyville."

"I do not kill you. You learn lesson well. Better than Scout, anyvay. So…vhat is this Ponyville?"

Twilight opened her mouth, but she caught Applejack's eye; she was giving the unicorn a "Don't socialize with the homicidal maniac!" look. "Erm…we've really gotta go…have fun with your 'gun' thing…"

Soldier burst from the bushes behind Rainbow Dash. "What happened? Did the Russkie kill any civvies? I want a head count, ASAP!"

Heavy picked up his Sandvich. "Soldier. Nice to see you trust me so vell. Ve truly make good team."

Soldier snarled. "I never trust a Commie any farther than I can throw one…and let's face it, 'Comrade', I don't know anyone who can throw you any farther than a few feet. Fatso." He counted the group of terrified, confused ponies. "You didn't kill anything other than that mutant freak, did you?" The 'war hero' gestured at the Manticore corpse on the ground.

"They learn lesson well. I do not need to reinforce it by killing." He paused for a minute. "No, Sandvich. He is teammate. Ve do not kill him." Another pause. "Yes, he is annoying tiny baby man, but not all of us can be big and strong, yes?"

Soldier walked in front of the group. "Sorry about Stalingrad over there. He's a Commie, hasn't got all his marbles, if you know what I mean."

Rainbow Dash snorted nervously. "I can imagine that."

The American saluted. "Sergeant Jane Doe at your service, civvies. Let's give you a little briefing before sending you on your way."
_________________________________________________________

Meanwhile back home, the richest man in the Western Hemisphere sat with his feet kicked up on his desk, looking over a list. One more dead white shark to add to his collection. Check. Single-handedly killing the Loch Ness Monster and causing the extinction of the Plesiosaur. Check. Talks to buy that new promising upstart company Aperture Science going swimmingly. Check. All the things on the muscled Australian's to-do list had been checked off—and it wasn't even noon yet. Looked to be another day of mostly killing hippies—the eternal scourge of the earth.

A butler approached this living monument to manliness with a report on a silver platter. "Mr. Hale, news from Teufort."

Saxton binned his list and looked over the paper. "Thank you, Mr. Reddy." He studied the paper a little more. "Site's completely destroyed, eh? Which one of those brave bastards built and set off that kind of thermonuclear bomb? I've got half a mind to give him a free hat and an eagle, as well as bring 'im back to life if need be."

"Not to insult your reading ability, sir, but perhaps you should read the report a little further."

Saxton obliged his butler and raised an eyebrow. "Missin'? No traces? This sounds suspicious…Mr. Reddy, cancel all my appointments. I'm goin' to New Mexico."

"Shall I get your private Pterosaur ready, sir?"

Hale stood up. "No, won't be necessary. Right then, you're dismissed, mate."

The butler bowed and slunk off. "Have a nice flight, sir."

The living legend jumped out the window and flew off into the sky using his aerodynamic back hairs. "SAXTON HAAAAAAAAAALE!"
_____________________________________________

"And do you know what Andrew Jackson did then?" Almost the entire group of ponies had either fallen asleep or wasn't really listening to Soldier's ramblings by now. "I'll tell ya what Andrew Jackson did, god bless his soul! He performed a Triple Right Hook Whammy on that commie fascist sonovabitch, oh you better believe it! No man has ever survived performing such a move in boxing before, and as wonderful a man as Jackson was, he was no exception! And so he sacrificed his own life to make sure that the evils of communism would not be spread farther through the mad preachings of Karl Marx! And his sacrifice stood for many years…until Joseph Stalin came along and screwed the whole thing up! By then, everyone was so out of practice in dealing with commie scum that only one man could stand up to Stalin, and that man was—"

Twilight shoved her hoof into Soldier's mouth. "Wait, wait, wait, wait. What in Equestria does that have to do with anything?"

The American smacked Twilight's hoof away. "I believe it has everything to do with the current situation, young lady!"

"No it doesn't! You told us a bit about yourself and then you started talking about these Nazi ponies, and then the whole thing just devolved into a nonsensical rant about things that never happened and ponies that never existed!"

Soldier looked indignant at this. "Why, I never! I did not personally send over six thousand scum-sucking Nazi bastards to Hell so that a civvie could tell me that the events in my historical speeches never occurred, no sir!"

"I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!"

"Why you ungrateful maggot! I oughta—"

Their argument was interrupted by Scout's arrival. "Ay! Gimme dat!" he tried to snatch the bat Dash had been messing around with away from her, which resulted in a large wrestling match.

"Private! Come over here, we got civvies!" Soldier's demands fell on deaf ears as the fighting pegasi bumped into a tree, squabbling over it.

"Give! Now!" With a final tug, the bat was freed, sending Scout crashing into Engie, who had just arrived with the team.

"Ah, my unit! Fall in, boys!" Soldier stood upright, waiting for the team to fufill his order. The team took no notice and Medic galloped over to the Manticore's body.

"Mein gott, vhat is zat thing? Ooohoohoohoo, zis ist most interesting…ze wildlife here ist most exotic!" He giggled in unsettling schoolgirl-like delight as he talked to himself about dissecting the creature and finding out what made it tick.

Sniper approached Twilight. "Bloody hell, Solly's been talkin' ta you? Well, first contact's been buggered up…"

Twilight looked confused. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, you guys are…aliens? Back up, this isn't making any sense…"

The bushman looked sympathetic. "Aaw, sorry, Sheila. Solly's been talkin' ta you, yer bound ta be confused. Ain't got all his marbles, keeps ramblin' on about war an' shit."

Twilight winced. "Please don't use that language."

"Bleedin' prudes..." Sniper grumbled under his breath. "Look, mate, we ain't from 'round here. It's, ah…real complicated. Truckie'll explain it."

Engie got up and shook himself. "Boy, watch where you're goin'. Ah almost suffered a concussion." He cleared his throat. "Uh, howdy. Well, like Sniper said, we ain't from round these parts. As in, this plane of reality. Well, let me explain what happened…"

____________________________________________

Saxton Hale touched down in the middle of the New Mexico desert, right in front of the wreckage and rubble that had once been Teufort. There were multiple news crews on the scene, reporting on the destruction. Upon arrival, a reporter jumped. "Mr. Hale! Such an honor, sir…erm, we're live on the scene with the man himself, Saxton Hale, who has mysteriously decided to visit the ruins of a farming community called Teufort. Mister Hale, can you shed any light on your reasons of being here?"

Hale shook his head. "Naw, mate. Private business. Top secret. You understand, don't you?"

"Yes, of course. Now, I'd hate to ask this, but, the news crews have been having trouble getting a little closer to the action…this darn chain link fence is getting in the way. By any chance, could you…"

"Saxton Hale doesn't take orders from anyone, mate. Luckily for you, though, I was getting' ready ta go in there meself, so I'll do you blokes a favor." He turned back to the fence separating the general public from Teufort and ripped a large hole in it with his bare damn hands. "SAXTON HALE!"

Hale shoved his way through the resulting mob of reporters and punched his way through the rubble and into the BLU base. As he neared the large hole in the entryway floor, he stopped and sniffed. "I smell antimatter…" His suspicions grew as he saw the BLU Spawn Door missing—it had been made to withstand extremely high-powered explosions, surely it could handle a little rubble? Not to mention the fact that the door was nowhere in sight. Actually that one was a little easier to explain; quite possibly it was buried under rubble. He caught sight of something red and leapt down the hole, clearing away the rubble around it. He found the remains of the RED teleporter and picked up the dislocated control valve. "A' course…it's so obvious, but the big question still remains…" He dropped the valve and leaped up into the air, breaking through the ceiling and heading back to his mansion.

"SAXTON HALE AWAY!"

_________________________________________________

"So, um, let me see if I've got all this." Twilight said.

Engie nodded. "Okay."

"You're from another world."

"Yeah."

"And you got transported here through that black hole thing we were investigating."

"Yup."

"Originally you were a 'human'."

"Uh-huh."

"And so now you need a place to stay while you build some kind of dimensional transporter to get back to your world, and you're asking to come back with us. To Ponyville."

"Heck yes."

Scout chuckled. "'Ponyville'. Yeah, yeah, bet da founders really strained deir brains ta come up wit dat one."

Twilight tapped her chin in thought. "Well...the rest of you aren't insane like those guys, right?"

Heavy grumbled as he tried to put Sascha on his shoulder. "I hear leetle pony."

Engie tapped his hooves together nervously. "Well…not completely…ah mean, sure we got the odd personality disorder, but our kinda job'll do that ta you. But ah'm fine, really, I don't really seem to take as much…pleasure in mah job as the rest of the team—" There was a great clatter as Spy dug deep into the weapons pile and brought out his disguise kit, knocking over his toolbox and spilling the contents all over the forest floor. "Oh, good night, Irene!" As Spy began scribbling on some blank paper masks, Engie looked on in horror at the disorder his stuff was in. "Naw, naw, that ain't right…I gotta put these wrenches like that and the blueprints like that…gah, they're all dusty…" He galloped over to the toolbox and frantically tried to replace the items. "Aw, dear lord, the ink smudged…"

"Ummm…okay…well, I guess we can't turn you down…you guys can bunk in the library where I live until you build something to get you and your friends home, but in the meantime…you guys have to at least make sure you don't hurt anypony. Ponies in Ponyville are really hospitable, but I'm pretty sure the welcome mat stays out only as long as they know you guys aren't, you know, homicidal maniacs waiting to happen." Twilight said.

Engie shook his hoof. "No, no, ma'am, I couldn't possibly impose on ya…ah mean, it ain't gentlemanly-"

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Erm, what?"

"Sorry. It's an expression from where ah come from. Anyhow, I couldn't impose on y'all…"

Scout flew up into Twilight's face. "I could. Oh, hey, you got a TV in dat library? I'm missin' reruns a' I Dream of Jeannie right now."

She looked utterly baffled at Scout's question. "Tee vee?"

Scout looked annoyed. "Alright, so, um, ya got record players? Have ya invented refrigerators yet? Perhaps ya got dis relatively new invention called 'indoor plumbin'."

"Well, yes, we have that. What, just because we don't have this tee vee thing you assume we live in the darkhorse ages?"

Engie pulled Scout out of the way. "Ah'm sorry. That's just regular Scout fer ya, always demandin' yer attention. So, y'all can just take five fer a sec, ah'll talk to mah team fer a bit." He turned back to his team. "Fellas? Fellas, we've reached an agreement. Miss Sparkle's willin' ta let us bunk back at her house 'till I can build somethin' ta bring us back home. Keep in mind, ah ain't stayin' with y'all…so don't walk ta the kitchen one morning an' expect freshly cooked bacon. Y'all will hafta make yer own food."

Soldier grumbled "Dammit" under his breath.

"We're ponies now, Soldier. Ah don' think we even eat meat anymore. So, anyway, if anyone wants their weapons, git 'em now, 'cause I ain't plannin' on makin' any return trips 'till I get the machine finished."

"I keep Sascha and Sandvich. They have been good partners over years, would not be proper to abandon them." Heavy finally managed to get his weapon on his shoulder. Sniper walked over and grabbed his Huntsman, mumbling about, shockingly, hunting. Scout grabbed his stock bat and energy drinks, while Medic struggled to hold all his assorted bonesaw varieties and mediguns and Spy slipped some invisibility watches onto his wrists and shoved a pocketwatch down a suit pocket.

"Another thing, fellas. Don't hurt anyone here, alright?" The group, only half-listening, dismissively mumbled their assent.

"We're moving, everypony." Twilight Sparkle, who had just finished explaining the situation to her friends, moved ahead, acting as group leader. After a few minutes of walking, there was a great crash and a scream of surprise as the weight of Medic's baggage finally toppled open, burying him. "Assistance, bitte…"

Twilight levitated the things off the doctor. "You do know you can just levitate all that, right?" Medic wasn't listening, as he was staring, amazed, at Twilight's feat.

"Mein gott! You have developed ze powers of levitation! Zis is most fascinating, but how do zey do it…" She'd already lost him to his own (admittedly morbid) scientific curiosity. The lavender filly sighed and moved on, resigned to carrying Medic's things for him.

"So, um…if'n ya don't mind me askin'…why in the hay do y'all need them sharp objects?" Applejack voiced her curiosity to Engie.

He tapped his hooves together nervously. "Well, ah ain't supposed ta discuss the details a' my contract…let's jus' say ah had a very dangerous job back in my home world. Say, what do y'all do fer a livin'?" Engie changed the subject.

"Oh, me? Ah'm a farmer. Born an' raised on Sweet Apple Acres with mah big brother Macintosh and Granny Smith. We farm apples. So, ah'm guessin' you build machines?"

"Yeah. Graduated first in mah class in mah university, followin' in mah daddy's footsteps. Did you know in mah world, mah grandfather invented the prosthetic limb?"

The farmer inquired, "What now?"

Engie sighed at having to dumb it down for Applejack. "A robot hand. Or hoof, as y'all would call it."

"Hand? Tha's like one a' yer freaky human appendages, right?"

The mechanic looked offended. "Freaky? Listen here, missy, where ah come from, unicorns an' pegasi don' exist either, an' if we saw one there, we'd be freakin' out majorly. In fact, ah'm sure the reason we ain't in a hysterical fit of screamin' an' hollerin' right now's because we're in a minor state a' shock that delays our reactions ta somethin' this alien."

Applejack tapped her chin in thought. "Yeah, that does make sense. Humans were always considered an old pony tale here, like the Mare in the Moon. Then again, she turned out ta be real, too…long story, somepony'll tell y'all about it."

Scout was bugging Rainbow Dash. "'Ay, Dash. We there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"

"Do you see houses yet?" Dash said through gritted teeth.

"Uuuh…no."

"Then we aren't there yet!"

"How 'bout now?" Scout grinned, his eyes alight in childish delight at successfully annoying someone.

"Are you always this annoying?" The cyan Pegasus demanded.

"Depends on yer definition a' annoyin'. On Hardhat's slidin' scale a' hair-pullin' annoyances, he told me I rank at constant annoyance. Say, uh, you dye yer hair like that?"

"Why? What's wrong with my mane?" Dash said defensively.

"Well, it's just dat…" He stifled a laugh. "Da rainbow thing makes ya look like a dyke."

"Oh, ha, ha. You think I haven't heard that one a bajillion and one times? It's natural. The color of my mane does not reflect which way I swing, okay? By the way, your bandages don't make you look any tougher. They just make you look like a dink."

Scout looked offended at this, but his expression changed into one of amusement. "I like you, fella. We should totally hang out sometime." He crashed into a house, ending his flight abruptly and painfully.

Dash snickered. "Nice job looking where you're flying. Oh, by the way…" Some school-age ponies walked by, giving Scout a weird look. "Welcome to Ponyville."



Return to Top

> Awkward Beginnings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


"That's your town?" Soldier asked with disgust plain on his face.

"Yep! The coolest town in Equestria…well, except for Cloudsdale." Rainbow Dash bragged.

"It looks like someone ate too much candy corn and took a bucketload of hippie drugs on Halloween and barfed up a Technicolor nightmare of prissy girly things and horses." He continued walking while the three locals looked on, offended. "And not even the good kind."

"Well, he's just one big shining ray of sunshine, isn't he?" Twilight asked the Engineer.

He groaned. "Tell me 'bout it. Y'all don't have ta live with him." The orange stallion continued walking.

"Now I do…" She muttered under her breath, trotting ahead of the group instantly regretting her decision.

After a while, Applejack had had to return to work, and Rainbow Dash had left in order to practice her tricks, leaving Twilight Sparkle to lead the nine strange stallions around town. As the group walked around town, taking in the sights and sounds (mostly the sounds of Scout pestering everyone), they came across a familiar bakery. "Let's stop here for a bit, everypony. I need something to eat." 'And drink.' She thought to herself.

As soon as Heavy walked into Sugarcube Corner, his jaw dropped. Looking at all the sweet confections and assorted baked goods, his mouth watered like it never had before. Sascha agreed; if there was a heaven, he was pretty sure this was what it looked like. All the cakes and pies and donuts and bagels and strudels and—

"Hi, Twilight!" A cheery voice snapped Heavy back to reality. A bubblegum pink pony with a curly mane was watching the counter. "Three more days until Nightmare Night!"

Twilight smiled, happy to see Pinkie was doing well, at least. "Hopefully it goes better than the last one. I think Princess Luna still has a bit of practice before she can properly integrate into modern society."

Pinkie nodded. "Yeah, she was kind of a downer, almost cancelling Nightmare Night forever…still, that's in the past! I've got a super duper fun party all planned out! There'll be cake and punch and dancing and a costume contest, but I can't say anymore. It'd spoil the surprise!"

"If you say so, Pinkie." She gestured towards RED with her head. "Have you seen the new arrivals?"

The bubbly pony peered over Twilight's shoulder. "No, silly filly, if they're new arrivals then I haven't—" She interrupted herself by gasping and somehow hovering a few feet above the ground before dashing away in the blink of an eye, leaving a puff of smoke.

Twilight rolled her eyes, although she maintained a smile. "Yep, knew that would happen. You weren't planning on getting any sleep tonight, were you?"

Engineer and Medic were simply gawking at it. "Bu-but zat's…"

"How does she hover like that? She got some sorta hoverhooves or somethin'?"

"Pinkie Pie." Twilight said simply as if that explained everything.

"But-"

"Pinkie. Pie." She said. "Don't question it; your brain will hurt a lot less. Trust me, I speak from experience."

A blue mare with 3 cupcakes on her flank and a manestyle rather resembling an ice-cream cone took Pinkie's place at the desk. "So sorry, dearies, Pinkie always does that whenever new ponies come to town. Locks herself in her room, can't for the life of me get her out until she's done planning for her party. So, who are the new ponies, Twilight?"

Twilight gestured back towards the nine colts behind her. "Oh, these are Heavy, Jane Doe—"

"That's Soldier to you, missy!" The aforementioned stallion said.

"Wha-why do you want to be called that?" Twilight asked, confused. "You introduced yourself to me as Jane Doe."

"Beggin' yer pardon, ma'am, but fer a majority of our lives he's been called Soldier, like I've been called Engineer. Would ya mind terribly just to call us that? That's the name we're used to, anyhow." Engineer said.

These stallions had strange preferences. "Okay, then, that's Soldier and Engie, and…" She paused as she came to Medic. "I'm sorry, I don't know your name…"

"No need for apologies, Fraulein Sparkle. It is entirely our fault for not introducing ourselves properly in ze first place." He cleared his throat. "Mein name ist Medic."

Demo walked up to the counter. "Me name's Demoman, lass. Do ya serve alcohol here?"

Mrs. Cake shook her head. "Sorry, dearie. I think we have a bar somewhere around, though."

Demo walked off, his head hung in disappointment as Spy approached and kissed Mrs. Cake's hoof. "My name is Spy. A pleasure to meet you, mademoiselle."

She giggled and turned red. "Charmed."

Spy placed Mrs. Cake's earring on the desk with a smirk. "Zat's my job." He walked away as the baker felt around her now earring-less left ear, surprised.

Sniper gave a nod in Mrs. Cake's direction. "Sniper." His look of professionalism went down the drain as his eyes grew wide and he began performing some strange dance. "Erm, d'you know where the loo is?"

The blue mare gestured with her head towards a hallway to her left. "Second door on the right's the colt's room." Giving a quick "Thanks", he trotted off to the bathroom.

"Ach, Scout, where are your manners?" Medic looked around. "Scout? Vhere did zat boy get off to?" Heavy nudged his best friend and pointed under a nearby table, where the young adult Pegasus was currently stationed. Heavy looked as if he could barely contain his laughter while Medic just gave him an irritated look. "Vould it be prudent to ask vhy you ah hiding under ze table?"

Scout shook his head rapidly. "Hidin'? Naw, naw, I ain't hidin', I'm…inspectin'…this table. Fer gunk an' stuff."

Soldier clapped Scout on the back, causing him to jump and hit his head. "There's a good boy, private, inspecting the undersides of people's tables for goodwill! I wish there were more privates like you. However, manners and introductions must come first! If you don't value your manners properly, you'll end up like Musseltoni!"

"Musseltoni?" Medic knew Soldier's knowledge of history had been…spotty at best, but he had never in his life heard of a Musseltoni.

The camo stallion waved it off. "You know. That French maggot you Krauts liked so much."

"Mussolini vas Italian." Medic deadpanned, knowing explaining it to him was most likely an exercise in futility anyways.

An orange stallion with an underbite and three carrot cakes decorating his flank galloped up to the counter, a panicked look on his face. "Honeybunch, there's a strange pony in a full-body suit sleeping in our oven!"

The Engineer climbed over the counter. "Ah got this…pardon me, sir." A few minutes later, he returned with a groggy Pyro, who was rubbing its eyes and making some sort of noise that could be interpreted as yawning through a gas mask. "An' that's Pyro, by the by. Sorry about yer oven, sir…Pyro likes fire." A beat as the friends climbed back over the counter. "A lot. Suit's fireproof, Pyro'll be fine."

Twilight approached the counter. "The usual, please, Mrs. Cake. And…how about a batch of cupcakes for the new arrivals?"

Mr. Cake retreated into the kitchen to make some cupcakes while Mrs. Cake retrieved a paper bag with Twilight's favorite pastry, a bear claw, inside. "That'll be nineteen bits. Would you like something to drink with that, too, Twilight? We're expanding into smoothies if you want to try one of those."

The purple mare took the bag and shook her head, handing over the required amount of bits. "No, I'll be showing Demo to the bar after this."

Mrs. Cake tittered and shook her head. "Don't drink too much, dearie."

Sniper poked his head out of the bathroom door. "Erm, does anyone have a jar?" Engineer procured a jar from his toolcase, which was set on the table next to them, and tossed it to Sniper. He very nearly missed, not being used to his hooves and all. "Thanks, mate." The sharpshooter returned to the bathroom.

Twilight sat. "Why did he ask for a jar?"

"Don't ask." From Spy's repulsed look, Twilight could tell that she didn't particularly want to know what was happening with that jar. "It is a very disgusting habit of his zat I imagine no one here would like to get into a discussion about."

"Riiight…" She looked over the pile of hats that now left hardly enough room for anything else. "I can tell Rarity's going to love you guys. What's with all the hats?"

This topic they were eager to discuss. The nine ponies who claimed to be from another world were now practically climbing over each other to talk about headgear. "Hats are sign of great honor! You have big hat, you have big honor!" "See dat soda hat, right dere? Bonk Helm. Ain't gonna find no one else wearin' that, I spent two months gatherin' the materials ta craft it!" "Hats are like medals, Miss Twilight! They show that you have earned great amounts of respect and most of the time I have to make them myself because my layabout team won't do the honors for me! Except for the times when you find them lying around." "Und zat's how he found his 'Service Medal' as well. It's wunderbar vhen you find zese things lying around, you don't have to spend ze valuable metal crafting und recrafting zem to find ze right one."

Engineer grabbed a teddy bear in a hardhat and goggles not unlike his, which was situated in something that could fit on a toolbelt, and set it onto a free space on the table. "Teddy Roosebelt. Two years and two thousand, eight hundred and fourty-nine pieces of metal."

Scout gave a cocky grin. "Naw, man, dat's nothin'. I can top that real easy." He placed an old-timey milkman's hat on the table. "Milkman. Twenty years! Eight hundred million, fourty-nine thousand, eight hundred and fifty-two pieces a' metal!"

A large uproar of scorn and disbelief came from the group. "Ye ain't even lived tha' long, lad!" "Leetle man bluffs! There is not that much metal in big wide world!"

"Bah! I have an offering for this game of impressing the locals! And I will also slam it on the table like you all did!" Soldier slammed a military-ish hat with a wing emblem on the front of it and a strange logo swirling around the top. "Unusual Team Captain! Ten seconds! I spent an entire dollar buying the key to unbox it!"

Twilight watched the logo orbit the hat with interest. "Ooh, that's a very nice bit of magic there. How'd you do that?"

Soldier laughed. "Merasmus had nothing to do with this, Miss Sparkle!"

"For vonce." The Medic snickered.

"Shut it, Kraut." Soldier shot back.

"'Tain't no magic involved, Ma'am. It's just Unusual." Engineer explained.

Twilight nodded. "Well, yes, I get that, but what magic did you use to make it like that?"

The group stared at her blankly. "It-it's just Unusual, ya know. Unusual hats do dat." Scout continued.

Twilight frowned, slightly frustrated. "Yes, but how?"

Silence fell for a few moments. "You aren' very quick on the uptake, are ye, lass?" Demo asked.

"Ugh, never mind." Twilight buried her face in her hooves as Mr. Cake returned to the counter with the cupcakes.

"Ah, ze gebäck." Medic got up. "No need to bozzer yourself, Fraulein. I'll get zem." The doctor walked over and grabbed the cupcake tin in his teeth, offering a muffled thanks to Mrs. Cake and heading back to the table and spitting them back out. "Now, who vants one?"

Twilight levitated a cupcake out of the tin while Scout looked a little green and mumbled 'Pass.'. "You know you could have just levitated that, right?"

Medic looked like he was concentrating on a certain object particularly hard before stopping and sighing in exasperation. "Ach, I've been meaning to ask you about zat, Fraulein Sparkle. How do you do ze manipulation of ze zero-point energy? I know how it works, or at least I have a very good guess, but for ze life of me I cannot perform it..."

She raised an eyebrow skeptically. "You're serious?"

"Unfortunately..." He grumbled.

"Well, it's a really simple spell, but I guess I can explain later when we're back at the library. That's where I live." She explained. "I think the more important question is about all those sharp objects and things we found in the forest. Those are yours, right?"

The team made various noises, ranging from attempting to figure out how to word something correctly to trying to think up an outright denial. Finally Medic spoke up. "Vell, ja."

"So what are they for? I bet you could really hurt somepony with that, you know." She pressed on, growing more suspicious. "And while we're at it, why were you so secretive about your job? It's not anything dirty, is it?"

The team collectively shook their heads in denial. Last thing they wanted at the moment was the only known civilization in this land getting a bad impression of them. "Nien, nein, nein, not at all! Nozzing so uncouth, ve, ah…err, ve, ah…" He struggled to think of something as Twilight's suspicions grew.

Soldier's ears stood straight up and he jerked across the table, getting rather close to Twilight's face. "Quick, gimme a sitrep on the next full moon!"

Twilight's interrogation face broke as he spoke his seemingly irrelevant, nonsensical request. "What? Ummm…in three days or so. Supposed to be last night, but it got moved."

Engie's confusion was evident on his face. "Moved? Hold on there, missy, y'all cain't just move the time a' the next full moon."

Twilight looked at Engie like he was stupid, a look he was entirely not used to getting. "You can if you're Princess Luna. But, um…is there something important you have to do on the full moon?"

Engie facehoofed. "Oh, it…it's nothin', ma'am. Halloween last year, Solly got some ridiculous idea into his head. Never shoulda let him wear his stupid robot costume…"

"Costume…oh! Is that what your costume is going to be for next Nightmare Night? You're going to put on a robot suit?" Twilight asked.

Soldier shook his head. "For the last time, I don't dress up as a robot at the full moon! I become the robot at the full moon! It's called Lycanbotany, and it is a condition that exists!"

"You become the robot?" A look of understanding dawned slowly on Twilight's face. "Oh…oh, I get it! I'm so stupid, I didn't realize it before! You're actors!" A wide grin was plastered on her face at having "figured out" their identities.

Medic was taken aback. "W-wha—" He blinked. "Oh—ja!" He laughed at having a lie ready-made. "Ja! Ve're a theatre troupe!" A smile was prominent on his face. "Ja, you caught us! Err, how do you say…ze jig's up, kameraden!" The rest of the team simply looked dumbfounded. Actors? "Ze jig's up, ze jig's up!" He whispered in an urgent voice. "Do you vant to be chased out of town, you dummkophs?" They quickly caught on and began giving off howls of laughter.

"And Soldier, telling those nonsense stories…" Twilight smacked herself. "That was part of the act! A character!"

He wished. "Ein character! Ja, it's zis little joke ve play on all ze towns! Ve enter through ze forest, und act like dangerous psychopaths to scare you all! Vorks every time!" He laughed a bit more for good measure. "You're ze first vone to catch on, Fraulein Sparkle!"

"Oh, wow." She chuckled. "I'm not usually the type for horseplay, but…that's a good prank. I mean, Pinkie or Dash would be proud." She frowned. "But you're quite the gamblers, aren't you? I mean, you could get yourselves arrested or something."

"Well, of course we reveal ze act if it reaches zat point." Spy had taken over the ambassador duties, not that Medic had any objections; as part of his job description, Spy had always been the better liar. "I admit it doesn't always go over well with ze townspeople—erm, ponies. But, really, what joke is humorous to everyone?"

The lavender mare took a bite of her cupcake as Scout grimaced and cringed. "I guess we'd better go tell Rainbow Dash and Applejack about the joke before we do anything. Applejack first, the Apple Family are very close and she'll likely warn everypony at the farm to stay away from you all. Don't get her wrong, she has the best intentions, but…she's very superstitious. But, um, Spy…is that your stage name? For the joke? Do you have a name you normally go by?"

He shook his head. "Just Spy. We always go by ze names we told you."

Twilight finished her cupcake. "If you're actors…then what do your cutie marks mean? They don't seem related at all to acting."

Spy blinked and paled slightly; he had no answer to that. He didn't even know what these "cutie marks" were. "Erm, well…zis joke…um, we…" He assumed it had something to do with their appearance and began thinking fast. "We used to have different looks and personas for ze joke…so it didn't go stale, you see. But, erm, just recently, Medic botched ze spell required for zis shapeshifting. So now it's quite impossible to revert to our true forms. We're stuck like zis. So, we figured we'd just play ze joke one last time before giving up ze ghost, as zey say."

"Oh." Twilight fell silent for a moment. "Well, I…I'm sorry…"

"Ach, it vas getting stale anyvays. Ve vere running out of ze alter egos." Medic waved his hoof dismissively.

"No, I mean…would your families recognize you?" She asked.

"What, you think we wouldn't tell zem about it? Zey all understand; Medic was never ze best at magic, it was an accident waiting to happen," Spy chuckled. "We were a bit disoriented at first but we've all come to accept ze changes."

"Well…if you're sure it's fine." Twilight smiled and jumped up. "Well, we'd best get going to Applejack's so we can…um, re-introduce you. Let's just wait until Sniper gets out…"



"SAXTON HAAAALE!" The aforenamed man crashed through the window, creating another Australian-shaped hole in the window right next to the previous one.

"Good evening, sir. Any luck?" Bidwell handed Saxton his Earl Gray Tea, which he had been faithfully keeping on hand for the past four hours.

"Our contracted boys in Teufort fell through another one of those bloody interdimensional portals again. I just know it, Biddy. I just hope it didn't go to the world with the talking bananas…I still have nightmares." Hale shuddered before walking over to a bookcase and partially pulling out a copy of "How to Outsmart a Bullet", revealing a secret doorway to an elevator. "Cancel all my appointments, Biddy. I'll be in my Manncave for the next…I don't know. Time is always relative."

As his boss stepped into the newly-opened elevator bookshelf, Bidwell bowed. "Best of luck to you, sir." Hale descended to his secret base of operations.



"Yo, Snipes!" Scout hammered on the door to the restroom with his hoof. "Da freakin' hell's takin' so long, man? We got ladies ta meet!"

"You try—" Sniper's retort was cut off by a grunt. "You try screwin' a jar lid on with hooves!"

"Out of way." Heavy walked into the bathroom; a few seconds later a slamming sound was heard along with the sound of a jar banging onto the floor.

"Thanks, mate." Sniper's somewhat hesitant reply was heard through the door before the two walked back out, Sniper quickly stowing a somewhat distorted jar of suspicious-looking yellow liquid under his hat.

Twilight decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was discarded lemonade he'd found. "So, let's get going."

As the 10 ponies walked along they came across a large tree. Twilight stopped and trotted over to it. "Hold on for a second, everypony…better check if the mail came yet. I'm expecting a shipment of bookmarks." As she approached, the door opened and a baby purple dragon came out.

"Oh, hey, Twilight. I was just about to come looking for you. Ditzy has a package for you and she really needs you to sign it." Spike noticed the nine ponies behind Twilight. "Oh, hey. Who are the new guys?"

"This is Sniper, Spy, Heavy, Medic, Pyro, Scout, Engineer, Soldier and Demoman. They're an acting troupe." The group looked, interested, at the dragon as she finished. "I hope you don't mind housemates, Spike. They'll be staying here for a little while, except for Engie. I don't know what he's doing, exactly." She trotted towards her house. "I'll be right out, Spike, just as soon as I sign for that package." The door shut behind her.

"So, Twi's bunkin' wit a lizard, is she?" Scout started conversationally.

"Lizard?" Spike huffed, offended. "I'm a dragon."

Scout blinked before a wide smile spread across his face. He gave a little whoop before taking off and doing a small loop-de-loop, partly because of his excitement and partly just because he could. "Aw man, dis is so awesome! Hey, Doc! We's livin' wit a dragon!"

Medic examined Spike. "He seems a little undersized for ze traditional look of a dragon…"

Spike crossed his arms, annoyed. "Gimme a break, man. I'm not even fully grown."

"Hrmmm, fascinating. Ein kind drachen. I vould like to shtudy you…" Medic muttered under his breath before Heavy placed a hoof on his shoulder.

"Doktor, do ve need to talk about end of world again?" Heavy said as though he was informing Medic of something stuck in his teeth.

"Ach, how many times do I have to apologize for zat? It vas only a minor doomsday cataclyst, remember? At least I didn't get my eyeball possessed, like somevone I know…" Medic glared pointedly at Demoman, who grumbled and began muttering underneath his breath.

Spike raised his eyebrow. "Man, you guys are weird…what was that about a doomsday catathingy?"

"Oh, nozzing you need to be concerned about." Medic waved off. "So, Fraulein Sparkle lives in a tree?"

"Well, it's not a tree, it's the public library. Kinda fitting, considering Twilight." Spike noticed Scout doubled over in a fit of silent laughter. "What's so funny?"

"Yer tellin' me she lives in a library?" Scout laughed openly. "An' I thought Hardhat was da ultimate bookworm!"

"You do know you're going to be living there, too." Spike pointed out, giving Scout a deadpan stare.

The delinquent gave a few more half-hearted chuckles before sighing. "Crap."

A gray Pegasus with a blond mane and crossed eyes abruptly crashed through the door before ending up on the ground. "Oops…sorry, Twilight."

The purple mare walked out of her house and helped the Pegasus to her hooves. "No, it's no trouble, Ditzy. But, um…isn't it about time for school to get out?"

The mailmare, apparently named Ditzy, gasped. "You're right, I need to get Dinky! Gotta run, Twilight!" She flew off towards a schoolhouse.

"That was the mailman-er, mare, right?" Engie asked.

"Yes, that's Ditzy Doo. She delivers the mail…and she's married, so don't even think about it, Scout." Twilight teased.

Scout made a disgusted face at the insinuation. "Ugh! Why da hell would I wanna do a horse, man? Dat's friggin' disgus…" He trailed off at seeing Medic's irritated face. "I mean, 'tard, I mean…" Now everyone was giving him either disgusted or offended looks. "Uuuh…Doc used to have a wife! Key words bein' used to, but they say once you go black, right…?" He gave a few nervous chuckles.

"I just vant to say zat I am not in any way affiliated with zis man." Medic said.

"Applejack's farm is this way. Granny Smith's a bit pld, I hope that's not too off-putting, Scout." Twilight began walking away, the rest of the team following.

"'Ey, come on, man, I wasn't serious! I-I mean, I got a cousin wit, uh…Spy, you know I ain't like that, right?"

"You disgust me."



The elevator to the Manncave arrived at its destination, the doors slowly opening. Before Hale was a room straight out of a comic book, with various technological doodads and gizmos doing everything from tracking the locations of all TF Industries' employees/combatants and Dr. McNinja, using hidden cameras all around the bases to spy on said employees and make sure they weren't having a hippie dancing jubilee or something, keeping power flowing to Great Cthulhu's prison in Saxton Hale's Dark God Penitentiary (where he was imprisoned after the great Saxton Hale/Cthulhu clash of 1964) and making the most amazing dark coffee in the galaxy, all manned by thousands of clones, albeit inferior ones, of the man himself, Saxton Hale. Not bad for 1967.

"Haleclone Number 267, did you pinpoint the locations of our missing mercs?" Saxton Hale asked the Haleclone at a monitor showing what looked to be different universes.

"Just finished, Hale Prime. We've got the BLU team right here…" The Haleclone pushed a button on the console, bringing an image of a ponified BLU Scout trying to chat up a mare in a Stable 2 Jumpsuit while the rest of his team battled bipedal canine creatures wearing what was unmistakably mind-control headgear in some kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland.

"That's a new one…better go there last, though, after my last encounter with my arch-nemesis Dr. McNinja my doctor told me I shouldn't go near any radiation for at least a week or I'll explode. Into a million pieces." Hale grabbed a cup of black coffee and took a sip. "Mmm, this really is good. What about RED, though?"

"I was getting there. They ended up in the Sugar Bowl." The image of the BLU team disappeared, replaced by an image of the RED team, Scout trying to get his team to talk to him again as they approached Sweet Apple Acres.

"Well, that bloody figures. Most everything that finds its way into the void between worlds ends up in that sugarcoated candyland." Hale sighed. "Well, suppose this is as good a time as any to establish diplomatic relations with that dimension. How long until the dimensional teleportalers warm up?"

"Right now." Haleclone Number 463 poked his head out of the dimensional travel station, waving at the original.

"Shouldn't have asked. What I should do is get us all checked for a telepathic connection. Right, better get in there now. It'll take at least an in-universe day or two to travel through the fabric of space and time, so I wouldn't want them to do anything stupid before I step in." Hale stepped into the room and boarded a travel pod. "Bon voyeur! Or however the Frenchmen say it." A blinding flash of light was emitted from the pod and a large explosion sounded, and Hale was off.



Applejack finished moving some hay around in the barn when Twilight poked her head in. She beamed. "Oh, hey, Twi! Ah just got finished hidin' the Element of Honesty like y'all said-" The rest of the team poked their heads in for a look around. "Oh. It's them." Her expression turned more into one of irritance and displeasure.

"Actually, it's a really funny thing about them…I'll let you guys say it." Twilight started giggling as Medic stepped forward.

"We're actors! Ve go around doing, erm…actor things and ve totally aren't verrückt!" The Medic said, hoping this would work. "Ve do zis joke where ve pretend ve're violent psychopaths to scare you all! Zere's no need to be alarmed, or, say, chase us out of town or anyzing! Honest!" He put on a big, nervous smile.

Applejack frowned as a subtle, faint glow came from a pile of hay bushels. "Ah…don't buy it."

The Medic, along with the rest of the team, suddenly looked a lot more scared. "V-vhat? Don't be silly, Fraulein!"

Applejack shook her head. "Naw, something's tellin' me…that ain't the truth. Ah just…feel it."

Twilight looked confused. "But…they wouldn't lie, right?" Spy began uttering curses in many languages under his breath as the Medic began looking around nervously. Twilight noticed how utterly nervous they look and she began to look angry. "Right, guys?"

Scout panicked. "Allright alllright allright we ain't actors, okay? We lied!"

"And why did you lie?" Twilight pressed him, looking furious as his teammates looked utterly terrified.

"We're soldiers, soldiers from another world, 'kay? We kill people and dat kinda job description don't go over well wit most societies, allright?"

Twilight's expression turned to horror along with Applejack's as they both stepped away. "You…kill ponies?"

Spy sighed, facehoofing. "Well, I guess zat story wasn't going to hold long…we owe you an explanation." He stepped forward. "Yes, we are all killers. But we do it for a very good reason. Have any of you heard of the Illuminati?" Both Applejack and Twilight shook their heads. "Good. Because zat's exactly ze kind of information zey don't want you to know. Zey are a secret organization which controls the world without anyone ever noticing. Ze President of ze United States, Soviet Russia's dictator, Germany's chancellor, every leader of every world government answers to ze Illuminati."

"Since ze dawn of man, zis organization has been nudging humanity along, for ze better…but zen, during World War I, ze Illuminati experienced a schism. One side, ze enemy side, wanted to make zemselves known as humankind's superiors and rule with an iron fist, reducing everyone else to mere slaves while zey live like kings. Ze ozzer side, our side, wishes to remain in ze shadows, urge humanity towards a new era of peace and prosperity. Ever since, ze two factions have been at war with each other. Ze Allies and Nazi Germany, World War II, zat was simply a more publicized conflict between zese factions…and it provided ample recruiting grounds for soldiers. Zat's how Soldier vas picked up—when ze RED faction heard about his rampage against Nazis zat ended after he heard ze war was over…" He neglected to mention that this information came to him a few years after the war. "…zey scooped him right up. My point is, ze BLU side seeks to destroy RED…and now, with Soviet Russia in zeir grasp along with its nuclear weapons stockpiles, zey have ze manpower to do so."

"Luckily, RED's America developed nuclear bombs long ago, so neither side dares attack in fear of nuclear retaliation zat would destroy ze planet…zis is known on our world as ze Cold War. Our job, where we are stationed, is to gain intelligence about zeir nuclear weapons from ze BLU base in Teufort so we can find a way around ze stalemate in our favor, whilst preventing our foes from doing ze same."

"And it's not easy, either! Commie maggots cloned us! Or did RED clone them? Whatever, I know I'm not a clone!" Soldier pitched in.

"So you see…" The RED Spy finished. "We do not kill because we like killing. We kill to prevent nuclear annihilation. "

Awkward silence fell.

"Well!" Soldier clapped his hooves together. "That's over with! Why don't we get some ribs?"

"You mean salad." Medic corrected.

"What are you, some hippie?"

"Hey, where's Pyro?" Engie looked around, the rest of his team joining him—all were happy for the subject change. The answer to Engineer's query came from the streets of the town ahead—Pinkie Pie was leading some sort of march while singing something, and Pyro was in the front of the crowd. "'Scuse me for a moment…I'd better go get him." He walked off towards the crowd.

They waited for a few minutes before Scout decided he couldn't keep his yap shut. "So, I, ah…I notice you ain't kickin' us out or anything."

"Naw, ah understand…" Applejack waved it off. "Ah mean, if ya gotta do it…ah'm sorry fer, you know…thinking you were all psychopaths."

"Ach, it vas perfectly understandable. I mean, ve didn't exactly make a good first impression…" Medic said as Heavy smiled sheepishly.

"Friends?" Applejack stuck her hoof out.

"Frie—" Medic started before Soldier shoved him out of the way.

"Miss Applejack, as leader of this unit, I am proud to accept both your apology and offer of friendship! Today is a brand new era of alliance between humankind and whatever you prissy horsey things call yourselves!" He declared.

Medic cleared his throat. "Friends." He shook her hoof, smiling apologetically.



"…'Cause I love to see you beam, beam, beam…" Pyro followed the pink pony he had seen in the bakery, singing along with her happy song in its own muffled, unintelligible way. Pyro, personally, loved this new world they'd landed in—it so resembled the little Pyroland (or so it called it) it had discovered early in its life and visited many times before, including the night of the mysterious deaths of his high school bullies in a tragic but completely accidental house fire, the day of the severe burning of the head of the Happy Feet shoe company, and sometime soon before it found itself being transferred to Teufort from that little kindling town its previous team had been battling in. Pyro knew he should stay with her teammates in such unfamiliar territory, but what harm could possibly befall him in this wonderful place? From what she'd seen so far the ponies here valued friendship, kindness, tolerance (they didn't even question his full-body asbestos suit and gas mask!)—all generally good things, a stark contrast to the warzones she usually attended. It was so wonderful here he even doubted it would be better on fire, which was a rare and glowing endorsement from Pyro.

So Soldier didn't care for it. Soldier didn't care for anything that wasn't pumped to bursting point with pure, concentrated testosterone. Why, Pyro betted that Soldier was asking for ribs right now! Silly Soldier—the Balloonicorn had told him that all horses were vegetarians! It wasn't like Pyro wasn't going to miss the taste of meat, especially meat that had been just been toasted to extra-crispy by yours truly, but she felt that he could get over a life of salads. No, not life—Engie, smart, resourceful Engie was going to build one of his machines to bring them back home! But that was after an indeterminate amount of time—if it was past a few days Pyro wondered if Soldier wouldn't be dead of starvation due to a stubborn refusal to eat "hippie food"! Although he didn't hope that was the case…his death would certainly put a damper on the town mood and make their struggle against the Bad Guys that much harder. As really, really crazy as Soldier was he did shoot a mean crocket.

As the pink pony's song was reaching a crescendo, Pyro felt a tap on his shoulder. She turned to see the Engineer standing behind it. "Pyro, don't wander off like that. C'mon, the others are waitin'." Pyro visibly wilted. "Don' give me that, Pyro. You'll have time to talk ta Miss Pie later." Pyro let out a muffled sigh as he and Engineer began walking off.

About halfway there they heard somepony calling to them. "Excuse me…oi, you two!" They both turned to find a brown earth pony stallion with a hourglass…Cutie Mark? That's what they were called? Anyways, he was also wearing a tie and panting from running to catch them. "Have you seen Ditzy around?"

"Sure, she was just headin' up to pick up her lil' one." Engineer pointed in the direction of the schoolhouse. "Why? You her husband?"

The stallion blinked. "Husband? Er, yes, I mean no, I mean…it's complicated. Look, I just, ah…I just need to tell her something. Thanks!" He rushed off to the schoolhouse.

What that was about, Pyro neither knew nor cared. She just wished he could finish the song.



"…and so now all that needs to be found out is whether she got DJ Pon3 out for the party." Twilight finished her sentence. Demoman had asked what she had been talking about when Pinkie Pie had rushed out of the room and Twilight had indulged the mercs about the upcoming party they were soon to take part in.

"Dinn't ye say she lives out in Manha—" He caught himself. "Manehattan, though? How far's that from here?" Demoman asked. "Surely she can' pack her things an' travel out here at such short notice."

"DJ Pon3 let Pinkie carry her all the way around Canterlot with her turntable during the Changeling attack so they could DJ at my big brother's wedding. Anypony who'd let somepony else do that are really close friends with that pony—I think she'll find a way to come." Twilight chuckled.

Silence fell . "H-how…?" Medic asked.

"Pinkie Pie." Twilight and Applejack said in unison.

"Sorry 'bout that. Pyro sorta goes where he wants—served us well enough before, flankin' the enemy an' all so we didn't say anything…but ah don' wanna talk too much about my job." Engie and Pyro had gotten back. "So, ah…has this town got any open lots?" The Engineer asked.

"Sure. Right next ta Ditzy Doo's place, why?" Applejack pointed in what one would assume was the direction the lot was.

Engineer had a wide grin on his face. "Ah plan ahead." Hoisting his toolbox onto his back, he began trotting off where Applejack had pointed. "Don' mind me; I'll meet ya back at Twi's place!" He called back to them.

"What's he doing?" Twilight asked.

"Mph hudda mmph hudda huh. Hudda huh mmphudda huh, mphuuuumphuh." Pyro said, his voice mumbled under the muffling influence of her gas mask.

Twilight fell silent for a minute, trying to comprehend the muffled gibberish that had come out of the Pyro's mouth, before asking, "Um, we can't understand you…maybe you could take off that gas mask so we can—"

"NHO!" Pyro immediately grabbed onto his face mask as if someone were going to snatch it off her at any second.

"Pyro doesn't remove his…her…its mask for anyzing. I once tried to remove ze mask of ze opposing Pyro out of curiosity only to find he'd superglued it to its head, or whatever equivalent zat soulless hellbeast has. We don't know why, it's one of ze many things we don't know about Pyro." Spy explained, looking at Pyro apprehensively as though he might go haywire and start setting him on fire right now.

"Oh, uh…sorry." Twilight apologized quickly.

"Don't be. You'll learn all about our little…quirks soon enough. Such as ze hats—" Spy blinked. "Ze hats."

"What? What about 'em?" Scout asked.

"We left our hats at ze restauraunt. Along with ze rest of our equipment." A collection of groans arose from the group, some of them facehoofing. Spy checked his invisibility watch and abruptly vanished on the spot, prompting a surprised jump from Twilight and Applejack. "Sorry, wrong watch." The air where Spy used to be seemingly said before he slowly came back into view. He pulled out his pocketwatch, the Dead Ringer, which was the only invisibility watch he had with any sort of functionality to tell time. "It's 7:42 PM…assuming your time zone's ze same as ze one I have zis tuned to. How late is ze restaurant open?"

"Until 7:30, sorry. You can probably pick them up tomorrow—" Twilight's sentence was interrupted by a pink blur that sent the eight mercenaries spinning. They spun around in place for the longest time, a time Medic supposed shouldn't have been possible, before slowing to a stop. Pyro clutched his head in an attempt to get his dizziness under control and Soldier's helmet comically remained spinning on his head for a few seconds after he did. As their dizziness subsided they realized that the purple unicorn and orange earth pony they'd been talking to had now mysteriously vanished, leaving a small pile of confetti where they'd once been. The situation was best summed up by the Demoman's next sentence:

"Oi…wha' just happened?"



Engie whistled a tune he had heard before from a song about an Arizona Ranger as he trotted along to his destination, which was slowly coming into view. It was a plain enough cottage, although the mailbox was a little crooked. The only reason he recognized it as the mailmare's house was the fact that he could make out Ditzy Doo and that brown stallion entering the house together with what Engineer assumed was Ditzy's child…she was a cute little thing, though it seemed nearly everything here was designed to be cutesy in some way, shape or form. To the right of the house was a vacant lot, which he figured was about big enough to test out his little contingency plan in case of factors beyond their control rendering him and/or his team homeless. Of course, he had made arrangements with that nice Twilight gal because he really wasn't sure if it worked—the team, try as they might, had never been able to scale the chain-link fence cutting them off from the outside world and Teufort didn't really have enough room for his little side project.

But it looked like he was finally gonna field test what he'd been working on for about 12 months. Engie trotted out to the middle of the lot and let the toolbox slide off his back. It landed dead center, and he flipped the toolbox open before trotting back a safe distance.

For a second nothing happened before the auto-build programming kicked in. Then suddenly a large metal sheet popped out of the toolbox, extending out nearly the entire length of the lot and supported by a large hydraulic arm. Slowly supporting legs extended from the lengths of the sheet, while supporting beams started extending upwards in various places all around the metal sheet.

As the walls of Engie's Porta-House began kicking in, masking all further development, he grinned. Nothing was grinding, sparking, exploding, or shooting rockets, lasers or nuclear weapons yet. So far so good. He didn't want to whack it with his wrench to speed up construction, considering he didn't know if that would actually speed things up and not break it, but his constructions ended up taking forever if the auto-build system wasn't sped up by an encouraging whack by his wrench—Dispensers took ages, and that only took up the space of an upright crate, Lord knew how long something as big and complicated as a house would take. Whatever party Pinkie Pie had planned for them would probably take awhile, though…maybe when he got back it'd be done. He observed his work for a second longer, oblivious to a pink blur dashing by him twice, and began trotting back merrily toward's Miss Sparkle's place. Been awhile since he'd been to a proper shindig.



Empty.

The entire town of Ponyville, full of energy and life not two minutes ago, was now simply empty. Devoid of any sign of life. They'd dealt with the vengeful ghost of a lost Mann relative, who was a big fan of murder and not so much a fan of your un-decapitated self, and the RED Demoman's long-lost possessed eye (who somehow now shot crockets), so they thought they'd seen everything. Being prepared for anything, however, they were not so prepared for nothing.

"Rphylly, rrph nhot mphhat crrprr." Pyro said to no one in particular, breaking the silence.

"The bloody hell is everyone?" Sniper looked around.

"Curfew?" Soldier suggested.

"So Twi an' AJ just teleported away, did they?" Scout snarked.

"I wouldn't rule it out, son. For all we know their kind could be extremely powerful magicians."

"Ees party time?" Heavy suggested.

"Ze entire town going to ze party? I'm sure zey have better things to do." Medic dismissed the suggestion.

Scout flew ahead, pointing with a hoof towards Twilight's treehouse. "Hey, if it's curfew I ain't gettin' busted by da heat on our first day here, awright? Who's with me?"

The team thought for a second before mumbling assent, the Pyro taking out his lighter and staring at the treehouse for a minute before shaking his head and putting it away.

No sooner had the team travelled to the treehouse and opened the door than a burst of confetti popped out and what had to be the entire town jumped out, screaming "SURPRISE!" Pyro jumped, Soldier instinctively got into an attack stance, Spy stood there with a poker face, Sniper quickly retrieved the jar of suspicious yellow liquid from under his hat and stood on his hind legs, brandishing it somewhat threateningly, Medic clutched his heart and Scout screamed like a little girl.

The whole team turned their gaze to Scout. "Aw, screw you guys!" He grumbled.

"HI!" The next thing Medic knew Pinkie Pie was in his face. Unnoticed by the rest of the team, Scout shrunk back in abject terror. "I'm Pinkie Pie! I don't think you know me! I mean, I've seen you before in Sugarcube Corner, but then I was all like—" She gasped again. "And then I ran off to plan this super-duper fun party for you all, as a 'Welcome to Ponyville' party!" She looked past Medic to Sniper. "Ooh, how does he do that? The only ponies I've seen stand upright are Lyra and Scratchy's marefriend Oct—" She put her hoof over her mouth. "I Pinkie Pie swore not to tell that! And I won't! Is that lemonade?"

"No," Came the collective response from the team. The Sniper sheepishly replaced the jar under his hat and got back down on four legs.

"Mmmphudda huh hudda hudda huh." Pyro said.

"Oh, you do? Thank you sooo much! Why are you wearing that gas mask?" Pinkie Pie asked as the rest of the team stared dumbfounded. Did she just…

"Hudda mmph hudda huh. Mmm mmph hudda hudda hudda huh, mmph phurda hurh mmphud."

Pinkie gave Pyro a look of understanding. "Okay then, I won't talk about it." She looked back around at the mercs. "What? Don't you all speak Mumblese?"

"Are dose apples?" Scout's attention suddenly focused on the snack table, his irrational fear of Pinkie Pie forgotten.

"Sure! We have apples, cakes, pies, candy—"

"I want it all." Scout said, a look of dire seriousness on his face.

Medic looked at the vast spread of food. "Scout, you can't eat all zat verdammte food—"

Suddenly Scout was in up in his face. "Ay, screw you I can't eat all dat frickin' food, man! I'm starvin'!" He rushed off to devour the snacks.

"Und whose fault vas it you didn't eat breakfast or ze cupcakes you were offered?" Medic mumbled under his breath.

The team took Scout's sudden departure as a cue to go around and start enjoying (or tolerating, in Soldier's case) the party. A few minutes after the team's arrival, a white unicorn they could only assume was DJ Pon-3 came in and started playing her music. It was a new kind, which everyone called "Dubstep" and apparently was commonplace enough as when Scout asked a random pony if dubstep was a dance move they gave him a funny look as if they weren't sure if he was being serious. In any case, this certainly wasn't familiar music, which displeased the Demoman greatly.

Pinkie Pie and the Pyro trotted up to Demo, who was currently grumbling at the lack of alcoholic stuff in the drinks. "Hey, Demo! Why don't you go and dance? Everypony's dancing right now! I mean, except for the ones who aren't, but they're probably just too tired from dancing!" Pinkie asked.

"Ach, I canno'—wait, I never told ye my name." Demo said, a confused expression on his face.

"Pyro told me allll about you guys! It's so sad about the impending nuclear apocalypse, I mean, brinkmanship is never fun, but that's not important right now! Come on, you don't even have to know how! Just trot in place a little!"

"Mmph hudda huh phurr hudda!" Pyro pitched in.

"I know how ta dance, lass, I jus' can' dance ta this. I haven't got a handle on the rhythm or anythin' about it! I mean, wha's with all the wubs?"

"Come on, just dance a little! Pleeease?" Pinkie started giving him puppy dog eyes, while Pyro tilted his head assumedly in an attempt to do the same. Given his gas mask and the inability to see her eyes behind the tinted lenses, however, it just ended up making it look extremely creepy.

"Nah, I dun think—" Demoman was interrupted, however, by the Scout flying over his head.

"Wait, what? Demo's dancin'? Aw, dis I gotta see!" Demo jumped at the sight of the Scout's upside-down, grinning face popping up between him and Pinkie. "Guy's a frickin' beast on da dance floor."

"N-no, I just said I wasn't—"

"Leetle Demoman ees to dance?" Heavy walked up to them. "I only know dance of my homeland, but Demoman is man of thousand dances. Ees very good thing to witness."

Demoman was definitely feeling the pressure. "Well, I'm not tha' good…"

"Aw, c'mawn, Demo!"

"Surely you are not afraid of song about stepping on Dub!"

Demo faltered for a bit, then determination steeled his face. "All right…clear the dance floor! Ah'm gon'ta show these lassies how a real man dances!"

The team cheered as Demoman strutted out onto the dance floor, ripping off his cap to reveal a quite magnificent afro. "Let's boogie!"

The following has been censored due to cringe-inducing, incredibly dated dancing from the 1960s.



Miles away, in the mountain city of Canterlot, the royal gardens stood, a thing of absolute beauty. The restatued Discord, now surrounded with guardrails to prevent ponies from getting too close and possibly re-releasing Chaos, stood as a monument to the longevity of the princess' rule.

Visitors came and went, the statue now bringing up more bad memories than praises of the creativity of the creature after the incident, until the royal gardens was eventually closed for the day. Such as it went until the day the nine arrived.

On that day, the moment the walls between worlds broke temporarily, the lifeless eyes of Discord stared outwards, never blinking as it surveyed the gardens and the land beyond.

And on that moment, nearly imperceptibly, the statue cracked.